


living legend (basically a hero)

by ZombieBabs



Series: Legendary (Modern Witcher AU) [2]
Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe, Background Ruby Carver/Charlie Strand, Drama, F/M, Magic, Past Coralee Strand/Richard Strand, Romance, Slow Build, Smut, Violence, Witcher AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-05 02:31:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 47,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10295519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: In the past, Ryszard of Strand is a witcher, a genetically modified warrior who kills monsters, as long as the coin is right.In the present, he is called Richard Strand. A living legend. Basically a hero.With the help of Alex Reagan, a reporter at PNWS, he investigates the reappearance of the same monsters he helped to eliminate in the past. And discovers how this reappearance is tied to the mysterious sorceress he was once entangled with.A re-imagining of The Black Tapes Podcast, through the lens of Witcher lore.





	1. Prolouge

The air is ripe with the stench of piss and rotten meat. 

The witcher scrunches his nose against it. His horse, a dark grey stallion, continues along, none the wiser. He trots along the dirt road, hooves hicking up dust in his wake. 

As they approach the scene of slaughter, the horse refuses to cooperate. He stamps at the dirt, tosses his head, and snorts when the witcher tries to urge him onward.

“Come, Riven. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

When words fail to soothe the beast, the witcher leans forward in his saddle. He traces the Sign of Axii in the air. The horse blinks in a calm, stupefied manner. The witcher snaps the reins and they continue down the road.

He has to calm the horse with the Sign once more before the witcher notices the first signs of a struggle. His keen eyes pick up clues. Dirt displaced where the balls of a human feet have dug into the road. Patches of dirt, darker than the rest, where blood has dried. The buzz of flies and caws of carrion birds in his ears.

The witcher jumps from the back of his horse. He ties the reins to a nearby tree and lets the horse graze in the shade.

The body, when he approaches it, hardly resembles the human being it must have been. Face down in the dirt, with most of the skull a pulpy mess of brain and rotting flesh, it’s difficult to tell the sex of the individual. The clothing is simple. Mud stained trousers and a shirt that might once have been white, but is now stiff and brown with blood. Rag-wrapped feet. No gear, no belongings, except for the purse that hangs untouched at the corpse’s belt. 

The witcher rifles through the bag--no coin, no notes, nothing that might identify the corpse. A peasant, most likely. Or a runaway.

His medallion rests silent at the witcher’s throat. No signs of magic.

He shrugs. A human matter, then. He notes the location, in case a reward for information about a missing person is posted, but he doubts much will come of it.

He unties the horse and leads the stallion further down the road.

The witcher sweats beneath his leathers, his skin roasting under chainmail and plate. He wipes at his forehead, but sweat forms again almost immediately upon his brow. His dark hair, tied behind him at the nape of his neck, is damp with it.

Summer bugs drone, loud and continuous, on either side of him. Contracting his pupils against the harsh light of the sun, the witcher notes there isn’t one cloud in the sky. No breeze, no clouds, no relief.

Riven spooks behind him. The witcher jumps back as the horse bucks, rearing up on his hind legs. He holds the reins tight, speaks soothing words, calming the horse as much as he can without falling back onto the Sign.

He hadn’t noticed, had thought the stench of blood and gore in his nose was that of the body he’d left behind. He’d been too caught up in his own discomfort, in the fatigue of being on the road for days on end. He curses himself for a fool.

To his right, the body of an old man. To his left, a young boy. A woman, further down the road. All struck, he notes as he examines each body, in the back of the head. And in all cases, the back of the skull is bashed into a bloody pulp.

Death was more than likely instant, painless. Probably gone before they knew what happened. Taken out by something fast, strong, something intelligent enough to use a tool, a tree branch, by the bits of bark the witcher spies caught in hair and gelatinous, stinking brain matter.

The shuffle of footsteps pricks at his ears, followed by something heavy scraping against grass and underbrush. The witcher looks up, hand coming to rest on the hilt of one of the two swords at his back.

From beyond the trees emerges a tall man. His chest is the size and shape of a barrel, his arms and neck thick with muscle. He holds the end of a large tree branch, dragging it against the ground as he walks.

The witcher was right. A human matter, all along.

The man stops at the edge of the road. He cocks his head, watching the witcher. “Toll,” he says, finally, his voice deep and booming.

“These people. You killed them.”

“Toll,” the man repeats. The witcher’s eyes catch a large hand tightening on the branch.

The witcher widens his stance. “No. Tell me why you killed them.”

“Didn’t pay no ploughin’ toll,” the tall man says. “Pay the toll an’ ye won’t get hurt.”

The witcher smiles. He knows it isn’t a pretty sight. “You’ll find I can defend myself better than a family of peasants.”

The man swings the branch at the witcher with a grunt of effort, counting on its length to catch his side or perhaps knock the witcher off his feet. The witcher, reflexes faster than the man anticipates, traces the Sign of Aard.

The force of the blast blows the man backward several steps. The tree branch hits the man across the chest, knocking him down. It falls into his lap, its weight enough to pin the man to the ground long enough for the witcher to come upon him, his steel sword already in his grasp.

“Who--who are ye?” the man asks.

“Ryszard of Strand.”

“An’ what are ye’? Some sort of magician?”

The witcher smiles again, letting it contort his face. “Not quite. A witcher.”

The man tries to scramble away, but he can’t find purchase in the grass. Blades go flying, but the man doesn’t get far. “I thought witchers only ki-killed monsters.”

“That’s right,” the witcher says. He raises his sword. “I only kill monsters.”


	2. Questions

The cafe is close to the PNWS studio and frequented often by the staff. Alex recommends a blend, a spicy orange tea, citing it as her favorite. The witcher inhales the steam. Orange slices, black pepper, cinnamon, and cardamom. He takes a sip. And sighs in pleasure.

The recorder sits on the table between them. Alex Reagan, her eyes shielded by dark sunglasses, her hair pulled into a knot on top of her head, sits across from him, leaning eagerly over the table. Her coffee--if the barbarous mix of chocolate, milk, and ice, topped with a swirl of whipped cream, and drizzled in a sickly sweet chocolate syrup could be called coffee--sits forgotten at her elbow.

“Witchers don’t sleep,” Alex says. Her voice hasn’t lost the edge of excitement she’s had since he agreed to let her record him. “True or false?”

“False.”

Her shoulders droop by a fraction of an inch. She sits back a little in her chair. “Really? No truth to it at all?”

“You sound disappointed.”

Alex turns a delicate shade of pink. “I’m not. It’s just--”

“You’ve read the stories.”

“Right. What little I could find.”

Strand nods. “It’s difficult to discern the truth from fiction. I suppose that is why you are so interested in interviewing me?”

“Exactly.” She fiddles with pad of paper in front of her, tapping her pen against a sheet filled with her loopy scrawl. “I’ve got so many questions, it’s hard to even know where to begin.”

He nods again, takes another sip of his tea.

“So, _you_ sleep,” she says. “But do monsters?”

“A slightly more complicated question. All living beings need sleep to maintain proper brain chemistry. But not all monsters are what you would call alive.”

“Like our wraith.”

“Like your wraith.” His voice slips into what his assistant likes to call ‘Lecture Mode.’ “Or a golem, for instance. Matter that has been brought to ‘life’ with a spell. It doesn’t think, it doesn’t feel, it doesn’t bleed. Nor does it have needs like hunger, thirst, or sleep. It simply does what it’s told.”

She thinks for a moment, digesting this information. He can anticipate her next question. “Have you ever had to fight a golem? What was it like?”

“I have.” Strand grimaces. He can taste the memory of rock dust on his tongue. He washes it away with another sip of tea. “Tedious.”

Alex laughs. “Tedious?” 

Strand smiles, a slight pull of his scarred lips. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

 

 

They return to the studio. The witcher’s tall form never fails to draw interest, even with his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Even without a sword at his back. Alex leads him to her office and settles behind her desk. The witcher, so much like the first time he’d sat in the chair across from her, crosses his legs and, after removing his sunglasses and placing them in an inner pocket of his suit jacket, folds his hands in his lap. 

“So, how--how did--” Alex stops, wondering if her question could be considered rude. But it’s the first question on her list. Possibly, it’s one of the most important questions she could ask.

“How did what?” The witcher asks. His crystalline blue cat-eyed stare is still strange to her. The steely focus she sees there is unnerving. 

“How did you become a witcher? Are the stories about that true, at least?”

Strand frowns.

“Sorry,” Alex says, preparing to backtrack. “I can--”

“The stories are somewhat true,” he says. “We don’t--we have never stolen babes from their cribs. Nor have we taken naughty children who’ve neglected to eat their vegetables. But--witchers are sterile. They’re chosen. As children. Some might say by destiny, others by convenience.”

He lapses into silence. His eyes appear sad, but there is no way for Alex to be sure that she’s reading the emotion in them right. He hasn’t moved from his relaxed posture, so it’s impossible to tell from his body language if he’s feeling anything at all.

“You were chosen,” Alex prompts.

“My father was affluent. Possibly the alderman of our village. Or a merchant. I don’t recall many of the details.”

Alex wants to say something, to express how sad that must be, but she doesn’t want to interrupt. 

“He had a great many debts, in spite of his affluence. When the witcher came to town, he and my father struck a deal. A contract, if you will. But he couldn’t pay, in the end. So they came to an agreement.”

Alex sucks in a breath. “For you?”

Strand nods. “He took me, in the dead of night. Dragged me, crying, through the streets by my hair.”

Alex covers her mouth with her hands. “Oh my God.”

A small smile pulls at his lips. Alex doesn’t like the pity she sees there, as if he means to say, ‘It gets much worse.’

From beneath his pristine white shirt, Strand pulls out a pendant on a chain. A circle of metal with the engraved image of a cat’s face, ears pulled back and mouth open in a hiss. Alex knows this from some of the research she’s done. The Witcher School of the Cat.

Her hand moves on its own accord to touch it, but she remembers herself before her fingers brush the pendant. She pulls back, staring at him, her eyes wide with horror.

The witcher smiles. Unlike before, there is no hint of knowing amusement. Just knowing.

The School of the Cat has been mentioned all throughout her research. Not simply for churning out witchers trained in speed and stealth, but for the aggression shown by these witchers. In some cases, full on sadism and psychopathy. Experts speculate whether it was already something within the candidates themselves or a side effect of their mutations. Many, before even the decline in the number of monsters roaming the world, turned to assassination, hunting humans instead of monsters. Becoming predators themselves, instead of the saviors they were meant to be.

“Did you-- Were you--”

He leaves her hanging for a long moment, sitting silent, still. And then, he shakes his head. “I’ve killed--you’ll be hard pressed to find a witcher who hasn’t--but, no, never for money.”

Some of the tension rolls out of her shoulders. “So you were kidnapped. And forced to go with--to live with--”

“To train with, to eat with, to sleep with,” he says. His tone doesn’t change, but he smiles, and she gets the distinct feeling that he’s mocking her. “To undergo horrible, toxic experiments with. To writhe, to scream, to weep with. To die with, in most cases.”

“Oh my God,” she says again. Nausea rolls in her gut. She stands, makes her way toward the door, leaving the witcher to turn in his seat and watch her. “I’m sorry. Excuse me.”

As a reporter, Alex is used to hearing first-hand accounts from those who have lived through terrible ordeals. She’s used to keeping herself together through descriptions of trauma. But Strand’s cruel smile, his unforgiving stare, as he alluded to the torture done to himself and countless others--perhaps Strand had not made it out of the Feline School unscathed. Perhaps, there is something wrong with him after all.

She goes outside, breathes in fresh air until her stomach stops churning.

The glass door to the lobby opens behind her. A tall shadow falls over her and then zigzags down the steps as the person moves toward her.

“I apologize,” the witcher says, voice soft.

Alex takes in another deep breath as Strand stands beside her.

“I think, perhaps, I meant to scare you. It was unfair of me--”

“Why?” Alex asks, turning on him. “Why would you want to scare me?”

“The life of a witcher. Our origins. It’s not glamorous. Not like Hollywood makes it seem. We don’t simply drink a potion and recite an incantation. They say--” he releases a breath, turns his cat-eyed gaze away from hers, “they say the luckiest of us were the ones who failed to survive the Trials.”

Alex places her hand on his arm. There aren’t any words, so she squeezes, feeling strong muscle beneath the layers of his jacket and shirt.


	3. Unwelcome

The witcher stops in a small fishing village on the coast. It’s nearing dusk, the sun cut in half by the horizon over the water. Seagulls call and swoop through the reds and oranges painting the sky. 

“Excuse me,” he says, hailing a middle aged woman carrying a basket of silver-scaled fish. 

The woman looks at him, takes in his armor, the swords at his back, and lastly, his eyes, and hurries away.

The witcher sighs.

He tries again with a group of young boys, playing a game in which the sole objective seems to be to hit each other with sticks. “Where can I find--” 

The boys scatter.

Annoyed, frustrated, the witcher grabs a fisherman, sitting at the edge of a pier, nodding off even as fish nip at his line. The fisherman startles as the witcher grabs a fistful of his shirt, stiff with sea salt and other, less desirable substances. “Wha--wha--witcher!”

“The inn,” the witcher growls. “Tell me where it is.”

The fisherman, eyes wide, trembling under the witcher’s hold, shakes his head. “T’ain’t no inn, my lord.”

The witcher curses. “Don’t lie to me. A traveler I met on the road said I could find food and shelter here.”

“T’ain’t no inn,” the fisherman repeats. He’s looking at the dual swords strapped to the witcher’s back, over the witcher’s shoulder, as if he expects the witcher to use them at any moment.

The witcher shoves the man away. He tumbles backwards, trips over his line, and falls ass first into the water with a splash. The witcher, refusing to heed the frantic splashing and the cries of distress, takes the reins of his stallion and leads him away.

“Guess we’re not wanted here, Riven,” he says to the horse. “Best be on our way.”

Riven blows out a breath in answer.

 

A high pitched scream shatters the relative peace of the night.

The witcher, lounging against his saddle, close to the fire, sits up. Another scream, coming from the east, toward the water. He stands, kicks sand over the fire, and quickly gathers his gear.

As he throws his two swords over his shoulder, the witcher pauses. His reaction to the screams had been instantaneous. This close to the water, it could be number of things. Foglets, water hags, and drowners are more commonly found in this region. Or someone could have stumbled into a nest of ekhidnae. Or it could be simply be bandits. A human matter.

Currently, the witcher is not feeling kindly about humans. Instead of the warmth of an inn, his belly full of hearty stew and his thirst slaked with beer, the witcher had been forced to make camp for the night in the woods, a little ways from the road. Let the humans save themselves for once.

Another scream pierces the night and the witcher jumps onto his horse. He kicks Riven into a gallop, riding toward the screams.

The smell assaults him first. Necrosis, spoiled fish, and the metallic tang of blood. Human blood. 

He urges the horse faster. His medallion vibrates against his skin.

A pack of drowners chases a young woman on the beach. Her dress is rent down the back in multiple places, slashed by the drowners’ webbed claws. Her skin glistens in the moonlight, wet with blood.

The witcher puts on another burst of speed. He unsheathes his silver sword and hacks at the drowner at the back of the pack. It’s head, with fish-like gills and huge black eyes, topples into the sand.

The witcher jumps from his horse before it can buck him off. He goes into a roll, spraying sand as he goes. Keeping low, he slashes at the belly of another drowner, spilling its blackened insides. He turns, moving out of range of a drowner claw. He thrusts his sword through the neck of a drowner that tries to lunge at him. It flails ineffectually at the silver as the life drains out of it. The witcher kicks at the body, where it drops into the sand. 

Three more drowners converge on him. The witcher backs up, waits until the drowners are close enough together, and makes the Sign of Aard. The drowners go flying, knocked off their webbed feet. The witcher finishes them off, making quick work of it, before they can recover.

The young woman is lying face down in the sand. Her dress and the the sand around her are stained with blood. The witcher falls to his knees at her side and checks her pulse.

She groans in pain, turning her sandy face to look at him. “Please, witcher. I don’t want to die.”

The elixirs in his pack are not meant for human consumption. Even something meant to lessen her pain would be toxic enough to kill her.

He examines the wounds on her back. Some are shallow lacerations, needing only a salve and a bandage. He counts two, however, deep enough to require stitches.

She’s lost quite a bit of blood.

“You need a healer,” he says. He moves to straighten, but she grasps at his sleeve.

“Don’t leave me here, witcher. I beg of you.”

“The ride will do you more harm than--”

“I don’t care,” she says. “I’d rather suffer the ride than die here, picked apart by monsters.”

After a second of indecision, the witcher picks the woman up without any warning, she yelps as he lays her over his shoulder, carrying her like a sack of potatoes.

“Thank you,” she says. And faints.

He curses, then whistles for his horse. Riven rides up and the witcher hoists the woman onto the horse. He climbs up behind her, takes the reins, and kicks the horse into a gallop, back toward the fishing village.


	4. Tapes

The podcast is given the green light. Of course it is. No reporter in their right mind would turn down the opportunity to interview a living legend. Especially when there is so little information about said legend. Only bits and pieces sprinkled throughout history, the information becoming more and more scarce as monsters began to go extinct, as witchers themselves died out.

It gives Alex the excuse to dive further down the rabbit hole of witcher lore. She’d never expected to be this interested in what, until very recently, had amounted to a fairy tale. But now, days after the witcher had killed the wraith haunting the PNWS studio, the witcher is all Alex can think about.

He flies back to Chicago after their last conversation. He meant to scare her, to shock her with the realities of his circumstances, how he came to be a witcher. But Alex hasn’t been dissuaded from her research. If anything, Alex wants to know more. She wants to know _everything_.

He seems surprised when she calls. 

“Hello?” Alex says. She looks at the screen, but the call hasn’t dropped. “Strand?”

“I’m here.”

“Are you?” Alex teases.

“Yes.” Strand clears his throat. “Is there something you needed?”

“I got the okay for the story.”

“Your podcast?”

“Yeah. It’s like radio, but on demand.”

Strand doesn’t answer right away, but when he does, he surprises her. “I am aware of what a podcast is.”

Alex laughs. “Sorry. I’m so used to having to explain. It’s still relatively new as a media and, well, I’m sure you’re already aware. You lived through the rise and fall of radio.”

“I did.”

“God, that’s so crazy,” Alex says. “I can’t believe--well, I just wanted to call and give you the news. I guess you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.”

The witcher again pauses. Then, stilted, he says, “I look forward to it.”

 

Alex flies to Chicago to meet Strand at his office. She signs for a visitor’s badge at the receptionist’s desk and follows the directions given to her in the receptionist’s cheerful customer service voice--down the hall, left, right, elevator, fifth floor, another hall, another left--until she gets to the door with a plaque engraved with the name Dr. Richard Strand. She knocks.

“He’s not here,” says a voice.

Alex whirls around, her heart racing. She puts a hand over it, trying to calm it like she would a frightened animal. “You scared me.”

The woman smiles, not at all in apology. Her shoulder length hair falls over her face, obscuring one side of it. Her lips are painted a dark purple. The collar has been cut from her black band tee, in such a way that it reveals one tanned shoulder. Her jeans are black, torn and frayed all down the front. On her feet are a pair of spiked combat boots, half-laced.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says. “Who are you?”

“Ruby,” the woman says. “Ruby Carver. I’m Dr. Strand’s PA.”

Alex blinks in surprise. “PA?”

“Yeah. PA. Stands for personal assistant.”

Alex has no idea whether the woman is being sarcastic. Her face betrays nothing, the way Strand’s face sometimes does, when he isn’t making a conscious effort to emote. Alex checks her eyes, but no, her pupils are circular. Human.

“Alex Reagan,” Alex says. Usually, she would extend her hand, but she doubts Ruby will shake it. She shrugs. “I had an appointment with Dr. Strand. Do you know when he’ll be in?”

“Ya.”

Alex waits.

Ruby stares at her.

“Can you tell me when he’ll be in?”

Ruby opens her mouth, possibly to continue being difficult, but Strand’s voice stops her.

“Ruby, quit harassing my guest.”

Strand appears from around the corner, carrying a steaming mug.

Ruby breaks into a grin. Her posture relaxes until she--almost--looks like another person. “Sorry, Dr. Strand. Little lost bird found her way inside, couldn’t help myself.”

Strand looks at her askance. “I suppose that would make you the cat?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Get back to work.” His words are stern, but there is something in them that tells Alex he’s fond of Ruby. And possibly also her antics. “This way, Ms. Reagan.”

He pushes the door open and gestures for her to lead the way inside. Alex does so and stops short, forcing the witcher to stop, as well.

Bookshelves line each of the walls, but instead of books, the contents are all a uniform white. Plastic. “Are these VHS cases?”

Strand laughs, a quiet breath of air. “Convenient storage.”

“Can I take a look?”

Strand nods. He takes a sip from his mug. Then, as if it’s just occurred to him, “Would you like anything? A drink? I can have Ruby run down to the Starbucks on the corner.”

Already absorbed in looking through the VHS cases, each with a catchy title like ‘The Witch of Walmart Five,’ Alex says, “No, thanks.”

He lets her explore, even allows her to pull a few cases from the shelves. Inside she finds note cards, flash drives, SD cards, and various other souvenirs from each contract he’s taken on.

“There are so many,” she says. “But this can’t be everything you’ve done.”

“This is all from the last two years,” he says.

Alex’s jaw drops. She picks it up off the floor with concentrated effort.

Strand smiles. “The internet makes witcher’s work much more efficient.”

“Probably would have killed for something like that in the old days, right?” 

He frowns. 

Alex winces. “Bad choice of words.”

Strand shakes his head. “A figure of speech. You’re right, however. Not about killing. But a system such as this is better by far than wandering from place to place, looking for work. It’s difficult, also, to back out of a payment when results are not what the contractor might have expected.”

“Did that happen often? People refused to pay you?”

“More often than you might think.” Strand takes another sip of his tea. “The saying was something along the lines of ‘A hungry witcher is a good witcher.’”

“That’s horrible,” Alex says. “And there was nothing you could do about it?”

“No. Not when the contractor is a mayor or castellan. Local law enforcement are more apt to believe them over you.” 

Alex shakes her head. She’s glad that now, at least, Strand seems to be doing well for himself. His suits are always exquisitely tailored to his slender frame. He writes books and gives lectures. He doesn’t want for a contract by the looks of his walls.

“I want to show you something,” Strand says. He doesn’t meet her eyes, staring into his mug, as if he’s afraid that she’ll decline.

Her curiosity, worse than that of a cat, skyrockets. 


	5. Unwelcome II

What passes for an armed watchman hails the witcher as he draws closer to the village. His hand goes to the sword at his side when he sees the witcher, covered in drowners’ blood, black and viscous like tar, smeared with the blood of the woman lying across his horse like so much baggage.

“Healer,” the witcher says, without allowing the watchman to speak. “She needs a healer.”

“What happen’d?”

“Drowners. Now fetch the healer. Or point me in the direction of their hut. Hurry.”

“Don’t got a healer,” the man says. His eyes trace the injuries on the woman’s back, still sluggishly bleeding.

“I don’t have time for this,” the witcher growls. “And neither does she.”

“Don’t--” the watchman repeats. 

The witcher stops him by holding his hand up. He narrows his eyes in warning. “I’m not looking for a reward. And I’ll leave once she’s seen to.”

“S’not that, my lord,” the watchman says. “Truly. The closest healer lives in the next town, a few miles down the road. Got a sorceress. Say she can heal anyone an’ anything.”

The witcher doesn’t allow himself to feel the weariness in his bones or the hunger in his belly. “Which way?”

The watchman points.

Without saying farewell, the witcher kicks his horse into a gallop.


	6. Tapes II

The stockroom Strand shows her into smells of freshly turned soil. She quickly learns why. Plants grow under heat lamps along one wall. Alex doesn’t recognize most of them, but she’s never been too interested in botany. Still, she wonders how many of them are considered extinct outside of the walls of Strand’s office.

Another wall is lined with shelves containing jars of substances Alex isn’t sure she wants identified. Nothing so cliche as eye of newt, though she does spot a jar filled with egg-shaped spheres that look like they could blink at her any any moment. Alex shudders and continues looking. 

Stoppered vials, some of them glowing faintly, sit in a large cabinet at the far end of the room, locked behind glass. None of them are labeled, but Alex is confident that Strand doesn’t need a label to name the contents. 

On the scarred and scorched workbench sits a large pot and hot plate. Knives, scissors, metal and wooden spoons, measuring cups, and other objects commonly found in a kitchen are arranged neatly, everything within easy reach.

“What is all of this?” she asks.

Strand leans against the entryway, mug still cradled in his hands. “Alchemy lab.”

“Alchemy,” Alex says, looking over the room as a whole. “You turn metal into gold?”

“No,” Strand says, clearly amused. “I would have given up contracts long ago, if such a thing were possible.”

“It’s not?”

“Perhaps a sorcerer could manage it, but the illusion would not last indefinitely.”

“So, what? You brew potions?” She sounds skeptical, even to her own ears. “What for?”

“Battle, mostly. Our reflexes and senses are already heightened, but sometimes they can use a little...boost.”

“Is that what you wanted to show me?” Alex asks. She flushes, her ears burning, realizing how easily her words could be misunderstood. “I didn’t mean to sound dismissive. This is all really cool. Like, _really_ cool.”

The corner of his mouth lifts in a smile. “As a matter of fact, this isn’t what I wanted to show you. Though, I’m glad you think it’s _cool_.”

He says the word like it’s something foreign in his mouth. Alex laughs. 

He goes to the workbench, sets down his mug, half-full of what looks like tea. Bending over, he roots around and pulls out a box. Covered in dust, it’s obvious that the box hasn’t been opened in a long time. He blows on it, coughs on the cloud his breath stirs up, and when the dust settles, he rips through the packing tape with very little difficulty.

Inside are VHS cases, like those in his office. But instead of white, these cases are black. The names scrawled on the cases in silver sharpie are not as engaging as those of the white cases. They’re given perfunctory names, followed by non-sequential numbers, like ‘Ekimmara 3’ or ‘Chort 7.’

“Why are these cases black?” Alex asks.

“Most of the contracts I take on these days have nothing to do with monsters. Only people who are convinced there are monsters.”

“Apophenia,” Alex says, repeating the word he’d taught her when he’d come to hunt the wraith.

He nods. “Precisely. The white cases are contracts in which I found no evidence of activity from monsters.”

Alex indicates the cases in the box. “And these are all monsters?”

“Correct.” Strand picks up his mug, but frowns and sets it down again. Dust particles float on the surface of his tea. “Monsters which supposedly went extinct hundreds of years ago.”

Alex counts a dozen tapes, but the highest number scrawled on the cases is 26. “So many?”

“They’re dead, if that gives you any solace.”

“It does. We’re lucky to still have you around.”

“I--” He looks away. He clears his throat, uncomfortable with even that little bit of praise. “Yes. I suppose.” 

She smiles. “So, this is what you’re investigating?” 

“More the cause of their reappearance, than the actual monsters themselves. There has to be a reason they’re returning.”

“Like what? You said it could have something to do with your sorceress--sorry, not _your_ sorceress. What was her name? Kara something?”

“Coralee.”

Alex leans back against the workbench. “Why don’t you just ask her? I know you said you parted on bad terms, but this seems more important than a bad break up.”

He’s silent for a long time. So long that she doesn’t think the witcher is going to answer. Then, finally, he says, “She...disappeared. I haven’t been able to find her. I honestly thought her dead until I caught the scent of her perfume on that bracelet.”

Alex’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “She just up and left you? Without a trace?”

“I sensed the remnants of a portal, but that’s all.”

“So, essentially, yes,” Alex says. 

He doesn’t show it, not outwardly, but Alex can tell even after all this time, the subject is still painful for the witcher. She puts her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry that happened.”

He inhales, long and deep. “Thank you.”

Alex squeezes his arm.

He looks as if he wants to respond, to reciprocate her gesture, but doesn’t know how. Alex smiles and releases his arm. “Where do we start?”

He blinks.

“The tapes,” Alex says.

“Oh. Yes.” He picks up the box and Alex follows him back into his office.

 

“Robert Torrez,” Strand says, indicating one of the black VHS cases. “Plagued by what he described as a tall shadow. First seen in a home video of his birthday party when he was six. It appeared again in a video of his wedding when Robert is 42.”

“What was it?” Alex asks. “A ghost? I mean, wraith?”

Strand shakes his head. “Specters don’t leave shadows.”

“Then, what?”

“Those that caught glimpses of it described it as a tall man, deathly pale and wrinkled, naked and covered in dried blood.”

“Oh my God,” Alex says.

“It was actually a tall woman, but Bruxa are so slender that it’s easy to be mistaken.”

“Bruxa?” Alex asks. She nods at her recorder, the green light indicating that their conversation is being recorded. “For our listeners?”

Alex winks at him, as if she knows what a bruxa is and is only asking for the sake of her listeners.

“A vampire. One of the various types of vampire. They typically tend to stay away from mankind, but as civilization encroached on the crypts and tombs they are used to making their den, they’ve become...less shy. Which would explain why this bruxa seems to have latched onto one human.”

“Do they not normally do that?”

“Their usual victims are children. This bruxa was old. Very old. And smart enough not to kill her host, giving her a lasting supply of food.”

“Wow.”

Strand picks up another case. “Keith Dabic. His bandmate killed himself, violently, after supposedly becoming obsessed with something called the Unsound.”

“The Unsound?”

“An urban legend. A sound supposedly neither natural nor artificial.”

“How can that be possible?” Alex asks.

Strand smiles, perhaps glad for her skepticism. “Magic. Or, a creature created through magic, such as a succubus.”

Alex laughs. She can’t help it. “You’re kidding me.”

“The Unsound itself isn’t real, but the song the succubus sang was. It was enough to drive the young man mad.”

“I thought they were just, y’know--they just--” Alex trips over her words. She takes a deep breath, conscious of the recorder and the edits she’ll have to make later. “I thought succubi were more or less harmless. Why would she drive him to suicide?”

“I don’t know. And before you ask, she was not inclined to speak with me when I tracked her down.”

“You killed her?”

His blue eyes turn to steel. His tone is just as hard. “Yes. Jeff Wendt wasn’t the first human she drove to madness.”

Alex stares right back. “I apologize if I sounded accusatory. That wasn’t my intention.”

Strand backs down first, surprising her. “Forgive me. I am not used…to working with others. To not--”

“Being judged?” Alex guesses.

“Yes.”

“I forgive you.”

The smile he gives her is lopsided, sheepish, if you could ever call a witcher sheepish. “Thank you.”

“For the record,” she says, “I know who--what--you are. I know what that entails. I’m not going to judge you for it. Who you’ve killed, whatever you’ve killed, I’m sure you had a good reason for it.”

He shakes his head. And if Alex isn’t mistaken his eyes are now sad, so sad. He suddenly looks tired, like he can feel each of the years of his life hanging over him. “You don’t really know who I am. Or truly what being a witcher entails. But...I appreciate your trust in me.”

“I’d like to learn. If you’ll let me,” Alex says. “And, maybe you could learn to trust me? Just a little?”

The witcher breathes a soft laugh. “All I ask is your patience. They say it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. And I am very, very old.”

“How about we start with lunch? I’m starving.”

“I could eat.”

They both shove themselves away from the desk, the tension of the last moment washing over them like the tide rolling out.

“Are...you going to keep recording?” Strand asks.

“Oh,” Alex says. “No. I forgot.” She shuts the recorder off and shoves it into her bag.

She wonders when it will cease to be surreal getting into the witcher’s car--a sensible hybrid, of all things--or sitting down across from him at a restaurant. She wonders whether the thumping of her heart can be heard over the crowd by his sensitive ears. Or if the excitement she feels looking beyond the dark lenses of his sunglasses, into his strange cat-eyes, is still related to him being a witcher. Or if it’s comes from something else entirely.


	7. Questions II

The witcher gets strange looks wherever he goes. With his sunglasses in place, beyond extremely pale skin--a color that Alex has mentally dubbed ‘albino porcelain’-- and the scar bisecting his lips, he looks like a normal man. A tall man, handsome, but normal. No matter where they go, however, Alex notices how he draws the eyes of those around him, as if they can sense something different about him, something that makes crowds part and mothers tighten their grip on their children.

Strand doesn’t give any indication that he notices. He’s tall enough to stare over the heads of most people as they go by. His shoulders are square and his steps are certain. Yet Alex knows he’s aware. With his witcher senses, he has to be.

A calico cat, sleeping in the window of a bakery, looks up. Her ears flatten and she hisses at Strand. Strand ignores it. Alex gets the feeling that this, too, is a regular occurrence.

 

The restaurant is dimly lit. Old stained glass chandeliers hang from chains above each table, providing weak yellow light through a thin layer of dust. The table creaks as Alex slides into the booth, the leather worn and cracked in places. The hostess lays two menus down on the table and disappears into the back, as if she’d never been there at all.

“This place is...different,” Alex says. It’s not really the type of place she can picture the witcher frequenting. 

Strand smiles. He’s still wearing his sunglasses. “Ruby introduced me.”

“Oh?”

“Her first impression was perhaps not the best. She puts on a front, but she has an Instagram account consisting almost entirely of pictures of food she’s taken in restaurants all over the city.”

Alex laughs. “She’s a foodie?”

“While I’m not fond of the term, yes. She considers herself an expert in discovering these sorts of places. Places where the decor might be questionable, the service even more so, but where the food is actually quite good.”

Alex picks up her menu. “What would Ruby suggest, then?”

“The pasta is excellent, I’m told.”

Strand doesn’t look at his own menu. He looks at her, but it’s so dark in the restaurant, Alex can barely make out his eyes behind his sunglasses.

“Do you always wear those?” she asks. 

He hesitates. “I can take them off, if they bother you.”

“It’s not that they bother me. It’s just, I know your eyes are different, but can you even see?”

“The mutations,” he says. He stops as the waitress arrives, her pen at the ready.

“What can I get you?” the waitress asks.

Strand indicates Alex should go first. Alex looks at her menu and after a second of indecision orders two slices of pizza. Strand hands both Alex’s and his own menu to the waitress and orders a salmon salad with quinoa and avocado.

The waitress leaves without a word.

Alex prompts, “The mutations?”

“I can see better in the dark than most. Almost perfectly, if I take an elixer.”

“That’s pretty handy.”

Strand’s mouth twitches upward.

Alex’s fingers toy with the napkin wrapped around her silverware. “I know I said they don’t bother me, but could you take them off?”

Again, he hesitates. Then, he pushes the sunglasses up onto his head. His pupils are huge, blown wide, with only the slightest circle of blue surrounding them.

Alex leans forward to get a better look. She wants to reach out, trace the skin around his eye. She sits on her hands to remind herself he’s a person, not an oddity to be examined. “Wow. Can you control that?”

His pupils shrink down to slivers. He blinks and his pupils have expanded back to how they were. He sits, shoulders stiff, uncertain of her reaction.

“That’s pretty damn cool.”

It’s clearly not the reaction he’d been expecting. His lips twitch upward again. “I--thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The waitress places both of their dishes on the table. Alex hadn’t even noticed the woman approaching. She leaves, just as silently as she’d come.

 

Half-way through their meal, Alex can’t help but ask, “Is the clean eating thing a witcher thing or a, or a _you_ thing?”

Strand puts down his fork. “Personal preference.”

“So it’s not to, ah, stay in shape or something?” Alex blushes. “Sorry. I know I ask a lot of questions. Comes with the territory. You can tell me if I’m just being nosy.”

“I was never able to adapt,” he says, “to overly processed foods. I can taste the preservatives, additives, dyes.”

Alex makes a face. “Ew. That’s gotta suck.”

“It is as it is.”

“Is the food better, at least? Than before?”

She’s glad that he’s not wearing his sunglasses because now she can see the humor in his eyes. “Before ecompasses rather a long time.”

Alex laughs. “I suppose it does. In that case, what is your favorite thing about the present?”

“In relation to food or--”

“Freak.”

Alex blinks at the woman, another diner, who interrupted Strand. 

“Excuse me?” Alex asks. She’s hot with anger, but also shame. She now knows why Strand insists on wearing his sunglasses, whenever they’re in public.

The woman screws up her face in disgust. She looks as if she wants to spit at their feet. “Fucking freak.”

Alex pushes herself up from the table. “I heard you the first time, lady. What the hell is your problem?”

“Please,” Strand says, quiet. He reaches across the table and touches Alex’s hand. It’s the first time he’s voluntarily touched her, skin to skin. A pleasant tingle runs through her, as if she’s touched a live battery. She shivers.

Strand, mistaking her reaction, withdraws his hand. He slides his sunglasses back over his eyes. 

Alex turns back to the woman. “My friend and I are trying to enjoy our meal. I’d appreciate it if you could go fuck yourself. Preferably over there, where your husband looks like he’s trying to sink into the floor.”

The man in question has sunk so low in his seat, Alex wonders if he’ll need help getting up again. His face is tomato red and the bald patch on his head shines with sweat.

The woman looks at her husband, turning a matching shade of red in her fury. “Brent! We’re leaving!”

Alex watches, hands on her hips, eyes narrowed, until the woman throws a few bills down on the table and drags her husband out of the restaurant, screaming about mutant freaks and embarrassing husbands and the world going to hell in a handbasket. Alex sits, grinning in triumph. Her grin falls, however, when she notices Strand staring at her, his hands clenched on the tabletop.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “She would never have said anything if I hadn’t made you take off your sunglasses.”

Strand says nothing. If anything, his hands clench even tighter.

“Are you--are you angry? I couldn’t just let her say something like that and get away with it.”

Still nothing.

“Can you say something? Literally anything. You can chew me out for--”

“No one,” he says, “has ever done that before.”

“What? Defended you?”

He doesn’t say anything, but this time, his silence speaks for him.

Alex sits back in the booth, a little dumbstruck. “Not even--not even Ruby?”

Strand shakes his head. “She’s my assistant. I make it a point not to socialize with those under my employment.”

“Well, it’s about damn time someone stood up for you. You’re basically a hero. What right does anyone have to say otherwise?”

“I am a mutant.”

“I know you’re smarter than that,” Alex chides. “We’re all mutants. That’s how evolution works.”

He nods, conceding the point.

“Let’s get out of here,” Alex says, pushing her plate away. “I’m not sure about you, but that lady left a bad taste in my mouth.”

Before Strand can say anything, the waitress emerges from the back. She places the booklet with their receipt on the edge of the table, crosses her arms, and taps her foot, radiating impatience. 

Strand reaches for his wallet and before Alex can dig into her handbag, he places a crisp bill in the booklet and hands it to the waitress. The waitress tugs it from his hands and disappears once more.

Strand stands and holds out a hand to help Alex up from the booth. Alex takes it and again her skin tingles pleasantly. “Do you need to wait for change?”

Strand shakes his head. “She won’t come back with change.”

“Part of the charm of this place?” Alex asks.

He smiles. “Exactly.”

Alex wonders, as they exit the restaurant, how many other charming places she can get Strand to introduce her to, before she returns to Seattle. Preferably without belligerent, hateful diners. 


	8. Questions III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, a guided meditation.

The reporter looks at him with bruise-like purple smudged beneath her eyes. She yawns, takes a long sip of coffee.

“Tired?” he asks.

Alex hums in agreement. “Guess I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Is the hotel not to your liking?” 

“No. It’s really lovely, actually. I’ve just been having some weird dreams lately.”

The witcher never dreams. Or if he does, he doesn’t remember them. He’s always been glad for this. He doesn’t want to know what his subconscious would conjure up. Not with the horrors he’s seen throughout his life. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s fine. Do you want to continue where we left off?”

Strand examines Alex closely. Her head is propped up on her hand, her elbow perilously close to the edge of the table. Her usual bright-eyed and eager gaze is missing, replaced by a far away look, obscured by long, slow blinks. “Do you think you’re up to it?”

“Of course I am.” She tries to perk herself up. But her elbow slips off the table and she yelps in surprise before she catches herself.

Strand raises his eyebrows, a non-verbal request for her to reevaluate her situation.

She smiles, sheepish. “You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?”

The corner of his lips tugs upward. “I would never think of doing so.”

“You say that and your expression is completely serious, but somehow I get the vibe you’re definitely laughing at me.”

Witchers are supposed to be without emotion. Whether by the mutations that change them, the experiments they undergo, or the extensive training they endure, emotions are supposed to be burned out of them. That lack of emotion is supposed to be added protection, an extra layer of armor between them and their unlucky fate. It’s supposed to enable them to walk into danger, into almost certain death, without a blink of an eye. It’s supposed to guard them from those people who would spit at them, curse at them, pity them.

It’s a lie, of course. No witcher Strand has ever met has been completely without emotion.

He can still hear the psychotic laughter of graduates of the Cat School ringing in his ears. Can still see the cruel grins splitting their faces, taking too much pleasure in the hunt, in each kill.

No, witchers are not without emotion. They simply hide it, as they do their body language in the midst of battle, in order not to give the other party an advantage. And yet this woman, this petite, unassuming woman, can see right through him.

It frightens him, how easy it is for her to read him. But it excites him, also.

He allows himself a quiet breath of laughter, lets a small smile pull at the scar bisecting his lips. “You’ve caught me.”

“I knew it.” She grins, eyes sparkling.

He drags his eyes away, lest he be caught staring and make a fool out of himself. He breathes deep, evening out his heartbeat.

He hasn’t felt this way since...since--he breaks away from the thought, stamps it out like a flame beneath his boots.

“If you are having difficulties sleeping,” he says, pretending to be more interested in the pile of books by his arm than the woman sitting across from him, “I could teach you to meditate. It might help. To clear your mind before bed.”

“It’s not as if anything else has done any good.” Her tone is slightly bitter. Strand wonders how long this lack of sleep has actually gone on. “I might as well give it a try.”

“Alright.” Strand stands.

“What, now?” Alex asks.

“Why not?”

“The podcast--”

“Can wait,” Strand says. He keeps a mat in his office for purposes of meditation. He pulls it from a shelf containing various witcher gear, such as the black traveling case where he keeps his silver sword. He unrolls the mat and gestures for Alex to sit.

She does, looking vaguely nervous.

Strand, unconcerned for his slacks, sits down cross-legged in front of her. Alex mimics his posture, but looks unsure of what to do with her hands. She moves them from her lap to the floor by her side, then back into her lap.

“Sit however you feel most comfortable,” he says. “There’s no right or wrong way.”

Alex leaves her hands in her lap. “Now what?”

“Close your eyes.”

Her eyelids flutter closed. He allows himself a brief moment to admire the fall of her lashes against her skin before he closes his own. “The most important aspect of meditation is your breathing. Breathe deep, long and slow. In.” He breathes in. “Out.” He breathes out.

Alex follows him. For several seconds, the only sound in Strand’s office is that of their shared rhythm, breathing in and out almost as one.

“Imagine,” he says, “a color.”

“Any color?”

“Any color. As long as it is easy for you to visualize in your mind.”

“Ok. Got it.”

“Imagine that color,” he says, “and breathe.”

They breathe together once more. In and out. In and out.

“Give that color a temperature.”

Alex breathes. “Okay.”

“Imagine the color as a substance. Imagine it can move, flow. Is it thick and slow, like syrup? Is it crisp, quick like water? Or is it intangible, such as light or smoke?”

The witcher can sense Alex open her mouth to reply, but stops her. “You don’t have to tell me. Just imagine it.”

“Okay.”

“Breathe,” he reminds her. “In. And out.”

After several seconds of breathing, Strand continues. “Imagine this color, with its temperature and its substance. Imagine that it filling you up. It’s completely harmless. But you can feel it in your toes. Can you feel it?”

Her toes wiggle in her flats. “Yes.”

“Slowly, gradually, it flows from your toes into the heel of your foot. It travels from there up to your calves. From there to your knees. To your hips. Can you feel it?”

Alex breathes in and out. “I can.”

“Good,”he says. “From your hips you can feel it in your stomach. It fills up your rib cage, your lungs. It flows into your chest, your shoulders, your neck. Imagine it move down your arms, into your elbows, down into your wrists, your palms, your fingertips. Remember to breathe.”

She doesn’t reply, simply breathes.

“Very good. With your color filling you, let your body feel not just the temperature. If your color is heavy, let your body feel that heaviness. Relax into it. If it is light, feel the airiness of it, let yourself float. There’s no danger. There’s nothing but you and your color. Breathe.”

He opens his eyes to watch her. Alex’s shoulders slip from her rigid posture, her head hangs forward a little, her eyes still closed, her lungs still expanding and contracting as she breathes.

“If you find yourself losing the color or a stray thought makes its way in, don't fight it. Let the color go. Allow the thought come to you. The ability to clear your mind completely happens with practice. Just fill yourself up again, starting from your toes, back to your fingertips. Do so however many times you need.”

They breathe together for several minutes. Until Alex rolls her shoulders and reopens her eyes. “Wow. That was amazing.”

He smiles. “Do that whenever you have trouble sleeping. It should help to relax you.”

“Do you do that every day?” she asks, uncrossing her legs in order to get up.

Strand stands, offers her his arm to help her up. “Most days. Are you ready to continue our research into the Black Tapes, as you insist on calling them?”

“I almost feel like I could fly,” Alex says, raising her arms over her head in a stretch. “Where do you want to start?”

“I received a video I’d like to show you. It’s a new case.”

Alex blinks. Her eyes are far brighter and the eagerness is back. “A new case? Really?”

“If you’re up to it, of course.”

Alex rises to the challenge. “Oh, I’m up for it, all right.”

Strand puts away the meditation mat. He sits at his desk and logs into his email, Alex standing close at his elbow. He can practically smell how excited she is, hear the pounding of her heart. 

He clicks into the video.


	9. Unwelcome III

The guard at the gate refuses to let the witcher pass.

“You can see for yourself she needs a healer,” the witcher says, repeating it for the fifth time. “Raise the gate.”

“By order of the mayor, if you don’t got signed papers of safe conduct, you gotta wait until sunup. No ones’ta enter or leave if they don’t got papers.”

The witcher growls. The woman on the back of his horse makes a pathetic sound, rousing out of her faint. The hazy light of pre-dawn peaks over the horizon, but the witcher is loathe to wait.

He looks around, but the others waiting at the gate are either asleep, huddled amongst their possessions, or sitting in a circle, passing a demijohn of vodka between them. The guard opens his mouth to tell the witcher again about the papers of safe conduct, but the witcher traces the Sign of Axii in the air and says, “I have all the paperwork I need. Open the gate for me and my companion.”

The guard wavers on his feet. He blinks. “Everything seems to be in order, my lord. I’ll just open the gate for you and your companion.”

“Thank you,” the witcher says, though he feels not at all grateful.

He rides through the streets of the city, occasionally stopping to ask a stumbling drunk to point him in the direction of the clinic. The girl moans, her eyes squeezed shut in pain as the witcher deftly steers his horse to avoid the potholes and debris littering the cobblestones.

He jumps off of his horse in the yard of a building which has seen better days, made more from wood than stone, a hazard if fire were ever to spread through the city. Herbs grow in little plots on either side of the door, easy to access in an emergency. The witcher slides the young woman from his horse, hefts her in his arms like a young bride. Her back is wet damp with blood and she cries out when he brushes a wound with his arm.

“Sorry,” he says. “We’re almost there. Hold on.”

“Thank you, witcher,” she says. “Thank you.”

He looks away. “Let’s get you inside.”

He pounds on the door with a balled up fist until he hears movement from the other side. His sensitive ears pick up an annoyed “I’m coming, I’m coming” from the other side of the heavy wooden door.

He nearly drops the woman in his arms when the door finally swings open.

“Ryszard,” the sorceress says, her voice colored by surprise. Her hazel eyes are exhausted, the skin below them smudge with bruise-like purple, her long brunette hair pulled into a messy pile at the nape of her neck.

The witcher’s eyes narrow. “Harriet.”

The sorceress shakes her head, fighting the last remnants of sleep. “Don’t call me that. I told you that name in confidence.”

“What are you going by these days?”

“Coralee, as I was when you last saw me. Have you forgotten?”

A memory of bronze skin, bared to him in the moonlight, flashes before his eyes. His hands tingle with the memory of smooth skin, made slick with sweat. He can taste her pleasure, briefly, on his tongue. “Forgive me. It must have slipped from my mind.”

She blushes, having been peeking at his thoughts. She looks hurt at his words, at the lie she knows them to be, but hides it with another shake of her head. She looks at the young woman in his arms. “It seems you’ve brought me a patient. Come inside, set her down on a pallet. No, not that one. Yes, right there.”

The witcher sets the young woman down where Coralee indicates, laying her down on her stomach with a whispered apology. “Drowners got to her.”

“I trust you took care of them.” It isn’t a question. And the witcher knows Coralee isn’t waiting for an answer. She’s already cutting through the remnants of the young woman’s dress with a pair of silver sheers, eyeing the wounds with an expert eye.

The witcher backs away from the pair. His mission complete, he should seek out the inn. His stomach growls, loud enough the rival the pained groans of Coralee’s new patient, at the thought of food.

Coralee looks up. Her eyes narrow, examining him with a knowing eye. “Ryszard. Where do you think you’re going?”

“I should let you work. I only meant to drop her off.”

“Stay.”

“Coralee--”

Coralee straightens. She puts her bloodied hands on her hips, staining her pristine white nightgown. “You look ready to drop. How long has it been since you’ve had a warm meal and a roof over your head as you slept?”

Too long. Coralee doesn’t need him to answer. She never does. “Go into the back. There’s food. Help yourself. I’ve slept, so feel free to take the bed once you’ve had your fill.”

He doesn’t argue. He leaves Coralee to work. A cauldron hangs over the fire, the broth inside thick with vegetables and meat. The witcher fills a bowl, tears a hunk of bread from the loaf, and, at the last second, plucks up a block of cheese. He eats until the bowl is empty, soaks up the remaining broth with the bread, and bites into the cheese. He eats until his stomach protests, shrunken after fasting for so long. Afterward, exhaustion hits him, forcefully, violently, like a blow to the head.

He staggers and drops face first into Coralee’s bed. The sheets and patchwork quilt smell like the sorceress, like the unique perfume she prefers, made with sandalwood and violets. He breathes it in, hating himself for finding it so soothing, for letting it lull him the rest of the way to sleep.

 

He wakes, he thinks, hours later. He wakes to a slender arm slung over his waist, fingers in his hair, scritching at his scalp. He sighs happily, buries himself in the scent of sandalwood and violets. And when the gentle command tells him to go back to sleep, he finds he cannot resist.

Nor, he thinks, mind fuzzy from sleep, does he want to.


	10. Tapes III

The video Strand shows her is a copy of CCTV footage. It shows a parking lot. Despite the fact that the video is in black and white, Alex knows it’s broad daylight. The time stamp in the corner confirms that the video was recorded just after noon on a Friday. 

The parking lot is by no means busy. In fact, only one car--a silver sedan by Alex’s best guess--sits in the lot. A woman, her attention focused on her phone, makes her way toward the car. As she nears the car, another figure enters the frame, dressed in a hooded cloak. The woman must sense the other’s presence, or perhaps the figure, it’s back turned to the camera, says something to the woman. She looks up from her phone.

The woman’s mouth opens in a scream. She clutches her chest and drops to her knees, still screaming. She collapses, reminding Alex of a doll a child has grown bored with, her limbs sprawled out with abandon.

The figure doesn’t move for several long seconds. It doesn’t move toward the woman, doesn’t run to check if the woman needs medical attention. Instead, it turns, and as if it knows the camera is watching, looks up.

Alex yelps and jumps away from the computer. Then, just to be sure she hadn’t overreacted, she moves back to Strand’s side and peers at the screen.

The figure’s face is all wrong. It’s upside down, the eyes where the mouth should be and the lips, parted in a mockery of the other woman's scream, are where the eyes should be.

“Oh my God,” Alex says. “What the fuck is that?”

She blushes, glancing at the recorder, the green light glowing steadily. “Shit. Sorry. I’m going to have to edit that out. Let me try again. What is that?”

“I’m not sure,” Strand murmurs. She has the impression he’s trying very hard not to be amused at her reaction. The scar that bisects his lips, that turns his mouth up on one side, doesn’t help in the attempt.

“You’re not sure?”

“I have some suspicions,” he says, “but I’m afraid they are much more mundane than you are perhaps hoping for.”

“Mundane?” Alex asks, eyeing the figure frozen on the screen. “How can any of that be mundane?”

“Simple.” Strand’s voice slips into something close to academic. Alex has to fight the urge to take notes. “Alarmed--as you were--by the figure in the mask, the young woman, Fiona DeNevers, aged 23, fell victim to a heart attack. She died by the time paramedics could arrive. The autopsy ruled her death to be from natural causes.”

“Natural causes? Twenty-three is a bit young for a heart attack.”

“She was scared, quite literally, to death. While uncommon, it has been known to happen.”

Alex shakes her head. “That’s _insane_. And the figure? You think that’s just someone wearing a mask?”

Strand opens a new tab on his browser, taps out a search, and hits Enter. “Charlesworth, Washington. In 1957, tragedy struck. Sarah Benning, a 17 year old bullied by her fellow classmates, murdered the homecoming queen, Catherine Williams, on the same night she was crowned. Benning slashed William’s throat with a paring knife. Then, as the story goes, Benning sliced off William’s face and stitched it back on. Upside down.”

Alex’s first response is a vehement ‘What the _fuck_?’ She remembers the recorder, however, and covers her mouth with the palm of her hand. When she can finally trust herself to speak, she still can’t help the words that escape her. “Holy shit.”

Strand nods, though he doesn’t look the least bit affected by the brutality of the crime. “Legend has it, Sarah Benning cursed the ghost of Catherine Williams to haunt Charlesworth, Washington before throwing herself into the Pend Oreille river.”

Alex knows the witcher well enough to recognize the skepticism in his voice. “But you don’t believe it’s really a ghost? A wraith or specter or whatever?”

Strand clicks into a link and allows Alex to control the mouse. She scrolls through the website, skimming the text and reading aloud the most pertinent information. “The Festival of the Upside-Down Face. Welcome to the fifth most haunted town in America. Thirty-first annual festival. Masks encouraged.” Alex looks at Strand. “Let me guess. They wear the masks upside down?”

“I believe if you continue to scroll, you’ll see images of last year’s festival.”

Alex moves away from the computer. “No, thanks. I think it’s disgusting they turned something so awful into what basically amounts to a tourist attraction.”

Strand shrugs in a way that seems to say, ‘Such is human nature.’

“So,” Alex continues, “to bring this back to the video. You think the figure isn’t the ghost of Catherine Williams, but someone too excited to wait for the festival to wear their upside-down mask?”

“The festival is in a few days time. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that an early reveler thought to try out his or her costume, with unfortunate consequences.”

“In a few days? Does that mean you’re going? To investigate? Even though you think it isn’t really witcher business?”

Strand looks out at the shelves in his office, filled with white VHS cases, the contracts in which no true monster activity was deemed present. “I take on contracts regardless of whether I believe them to be ‘witcher business.’”

Alex frowns. “Don’t you think that’s a little, I don’t know, deceitful?”

Strand turns his eyes away. “I’m payed to investigate, Ms. Reagan. For my expert opinion.”

“I know, but--”

“I’m upfront about the price of my involvement, as you well know. If they are desperate enough to call in a witcher--”

“That, right there,” Alex says, interrupting him. “That’s what I’m getting at. They’re desperate. But you take their money even if you think it’s nothing more than a guy in a mask. Isn’t _that_ deceitful?” 

“What do you want from me, Alex? I’ve seen humans spend extravagant amounts of money on items unnecessary for their survival. They fill their houses to bursting with them. Why is it so wrong, so _deceitful_ , of me to charge for my services? This is how I make my living, but I have never--I’ve never _swindled_ others the way I have seen humans do to each other.” Strand’s hands clench. He refuses to look at her.

Hesitantly, Alex places her hand upon one of his. The same pleasant tingle, like a buzz of electricity, moves up her arm. “I’m not reproaching you. As a journalist, it’s my job to capture every side to the story. There are those out there who _will_ critique your work. It’s better to get ahead of that, to explain yourself rather than defend yourself when others start asking those kinds of questions.”

He pulls away from her. Alex tries very hard not to let it show how much it stings to have him refuse her touch.

“I don’t need to defend myself from the opinions of humans,” he says. “They have had them for centuries and will continue to do so.”

“You keep saying 'humans' as if you aren’t one of them. Of us.”

“I’m not. I haven’t been for a long time.”

Alex puts her hands in her pockets, afraid if she doesn’t, she might reach out once again. “You _are_. I’ve seen you bleed. Even if you heal really fast, your blood is still the same red as the rest of us.”

He looks at her, his eyes dark and difficult to read. “Can the rest of you do this?”

Strand holds out a hand. With a snap of his wrist, his fingers make a complicated shape. Fire springs into his palm, hovering approximately an inch away from his skin.

Alex jumps back, surprised by the heat emanating from the flames. The look in his eyes changes to something she’s seen before, during one of their first conversations. “Stop it. You’re trying to scare me again.”

The fire dies in an instant. Strand lowers his hand, places it into his lap. He doesn’t deny her words. Doesn’t say anything at all.

“You can be a very cruel man, Richard Strand.” 

Again, he doesn’t deny it.

Alex sighs. “I’ll email with my travel information. I want to be there when you do your investigation.”

She takes up her recorder, stops it recording, and turns off the machine. She places it into a pocket of her handbag and hefts the bag’s strap over her shoulder. She leaves, hoping he’ll call out before she gets to the door.

Silence.

Alex shuts the door to his office behind her, without looking back.


	11. Tapes IV

Alex meets Strand at the hotel in Charlesworth, Washington. It’s been two days since she walked out of his office and his text, telling her to meet him in the lobby, is the first she’s heard from him.

It still takes some getting used to, receiving text messages from a witcher. It shouldn’t be surprising, not with the way she’s seen him work a computer. He’s by no means illiterate when it comes to technology. But something about him, perhaps the weight of the centuries he carries, lends him the air of someone too sophisticated to send an SMS. Even something as perfunctory as “Meet me in the lobby at 10:00.”

He brings her Starbucks.

“Is this some kind of peace offering?” Alex asks. She takes a sip from the straw. Iced mocha cappuccino with whipped cream, drizzled with chocolate. Just how she likes it. “You remembered my order?”

He nods. “I wanted to apologize, but doing so over the phone seemed...insincere.”

Alex takes another sip from her coffee. She raises her eyebrows, expectant.

Strand huffs, flashing his teeth briefly in an embarrassed smile. “I apologize for my behavior. It was unfair of me. And, yes, cruel. Maddau i mi.”

The last he says in something that sounds like a song, melodic, even if she can’t understand the words.

“What was that?”

“Elder Speech. A language long dead.”

Alex wonders how many languages he knows which could be considered dead if not for the fact he can speak them. How much knowledge does he have stashed away in his head, knowledge no one else could possibly know, knowledge long ago lost to time? “What did you say?”

He bows, honest to goodness bends at the waist and bows before her. “Forgive me.” 

Instead of letting her jaw drop to the floor after his display, Alex makes a show of thinking about it. “Okay. You’re forgiven. But you can’t buy me off with coffee and pretty words every time you hurt my feelings, you know.”

“Ruby lectured me after you left. She reminded me that apologies are supposed to include a promise not to commit the same offense in the future. So, with that in mind, I will...endeavor not to hurt you. And I promise not to scare you again. Purposefully.”

She wants to laugh at the image of Ruby, the young woman who was so difficult to Alex before, lecturing Strand. But she has another question more pressing, one she needs to ask before the moment has passed. “Before, when you scared me, you said it was because a witcher’s life isn’t glamorous. And when you scared me again, you were trying to make another point--that you aren’t human. Are you trying to push me away out of some desire to protect me? Or to protect yourself?”

His eyes widen before he schools his expression into something more controlled. “You are a very astute young woman, Ms. Reagan.”

Alex makes a face. “I already told you to call me Alex.”

“Alex,” he says. He says it softly, reverently.

Color rises in Alex’s cheeks. She takes a sip from her coffee to cool the heat that flows through her. “So, which is it?”

He’s silent for a long moment, before he ducks his head. “I made an appointment with the sheriff. We don’t want to be late.”

Alex wants to push, but she thinks she might already know the answer. He wants to protect her, of course, from the dangers of associating with a witcher. But she also thinks he’s pushing her away to protect himself.

She has a feeling it’s been a _long_ time since he last allowed himself to be close to another person.

She lets him change the subject.

 

The sheriff, a long-suffering looking man in his forties, meets them at the station. “Boyd Osenga. You the witcher?”

Strand nods. He’d attached a strap to his black witcher’s case and he balances it expertly on his shoulder as the sheriff gives his hand a vigorous shake.

Osenga turns to Alex and offers her his hand. 

Alex takes it. “Alex Reagan. I’m a journalist at Pacific Northwest Stories. I’m doing a story on Dr. Strand and his work.”

Osenga looks between them and shrugs. “Dunno what you’re gonna find. This time of year, shit gets real crazy.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asks.

“People’re obsessed with the Benning murder. Gets to be a hassle around the festival. People come in from all over the country. It’s just another excuse to get drunk and cause trouble.”

“Do people usually die as a result of it?”

Osenga shakes his head. “Just supposed to be a bit of fun. Put on masks and scare each other silly. Poor girl, Fiona DeNevers, probably just had a heart problem nobody knew about. Like when you get a teenager who dies on a rollercoaster. Sad, but nothin’ you can do about it.”

“Were you able to find anything at the scene?” Strand asks.

“Naw. Nothin’. It’s got people right stirred up, that’s for damn sure.”

“Because of the legend?” Alex asks.

“Just ‘cause we didn’t find anything, doesn’t mean there were ghosts involved. But with the grave robbin’ last week, we got all sorts crying about curses and the end of days.”

Strand breathes a quiet laugh. Alex smiles briefly at his amusement and turns back to the sheriff. “I didn’t know about a grave robbing. Whose graves were they?”

Osenga sighs. “Give you three guesses. And the first two don’t count.”

“Sarah Benning and Catherine Williams?” Alex asks, though she doesn’t need the balding sheriff's nod to tell her she’s right. “Who would do such a thing?”

Shrugging, Osenga says, “Who knows. Probably just some hooligans tryin’ to stir shit up. Get themselves a couple minutes of fame, add to the legend. Got some of my best people on it, don’t you worry.” 

“Would you happen to have any of the girl’s belongings?”

Osenga gives Strand a look. It’s obviously not a question he gets very often. “Murder happened in 1957. ‘Course I don’t have any of their belongings.” He pauses, wipes at the sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Just a second. We got some scraps of clothing from the coffins after the robbery. All that was in ‘em. Is that what you’re lookin’ for?”

“That will work, yes. May I?”

Osenga gives Strand another long look. He shrugs. “Alright. You’re the witcher. Who’m I to get in the way of your investigation? Just the goddamned sheriff.”

As Osenga leads them through to his office to wait for the evidence, Alex leans close to Strand and whispers, “Does he actually have to do what you say?”

“Part of the contract,” Strand murmurs. “I’m to be given full access to the scene and all evidence collected. Within reason. This particular contract was signed by the mayor--he’ll have difficulty explaining to her why he didn’t supply me with everything I need, should I lodge a complaint.”

The sheriff leaves them alone for several minutes, returning with plastic evidence bags. “Need them back, soon as you’re done with ‘em.”

“If you’ll excuse us, this should take only a second.”

“By all means.”

Strand stares at the other man, his eyes hidden by his ever present sunglasses.

Osenga tosses the evidence bags onto his desk with an aggravated sigh. “Fine. Have it your way.”

Strand waits until Osenga shuts the door behind him before picking up the evidence bags.

“Did you really need to kick him out of his own office?” Alex asks.

“No.”

Alex laughs and Strand smiles. 

One by one, he opens each bag and inhales. It would look strange if Alex didn’t already know about his heightened senses. Still, she hesitates to ask, “Are you memorizing the scent so you can track them? The bodies?”

“Something like that.” Strand places the bags back onto the desk. “Come, I have a theory. I’ll explain on the way.”

Alex nearly has to jog to keep up with his long strides as he makes his way out of the sheriff’s department and out onto the street.


	12. Questions IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for this chapter, remember that violence is tagged for a reason. Basically the whole last section. If you'd prefer to skip it for personal reasons, let me know and I'll give you the push-me-off-a-cliffnotes version of events.
> 
> Also, you may have noticed--or will notice in the next chapters--I'm picking and choosing events from TBTP as they fit this narrative. I'm definitely not going to be able to use everything from TBTP and I'm not even necessarily going to be using them in the order they appear in the podcast. I hope you'll continue to enjoy this re-imagining, as much as I enjoy writing it. 
> 
> Thanks again to everyone who has been kind enough to leave comments or kudos. Ya'll rock.

The Festival of the Upside-Down Face is already at full swing. Alex assumed revelers would wait until night to begin the party, but at noon the streets are already full of people in costume, all wearing their masks upside down. Most faces are adorned with typical Halloween masks--monsters and horror movie serial killers, Presidential and celebrity figures, Broadway half-masks, Carnival masks, and those creepy, transparent plastic masks. More than a few masks are home-made, made from cardboard, drawn with marker, and tied on with yarn. Some of the children run around with eyes and mouths painted--upside-down, of course--onto their faces.

Food trucks line Main Street. Vendors call out, selling craft beers from under shaded tents. Arts and crafts, not all necessarily having anything to do with upside-down faces, are sold at tables on the street, blocked off from traffic.

Having to navigate the crowd, it’s difficult to keep up with Strand. More than once she finds herself carried away from him by the force of an already inebriated crowd. Fortunately, Strand is tall, and even the party-goers seem to sense something different about him. When he again comes to rescue her, the crowd parts for him, where it only seemed to converge on her. She takes his hand, surprising him by the way he tenses under her touch. She, of course, can’t see his eyes, can’t be sure of his reaction, but he doesn’t shake off her hand. Instead, he tightens his grip on her and with a hand on the small of her back, allows her to walk ahead of him.

Finally, they break through the throng. Alex bends over, hands on her knees, and takes a few huge lungfuls of air, catching her breath.

They stop at a cafe, where the waiters and waitresses half-heartedly wear upside down masks, pushed to the top of their heads. Alex orders another coffee. She still hasn’t been sleeping well and she has a feeling she’ll need all the energy she can get for this investigation. Keeping up with a witcher, she finds, is hard work.

Strand doesn’t order anything. Instead, he opens his black case. He retrieves a stoppered bottle, tugs out the cork, and downs the contents like a shot.

“What’s that?” Alex asks.

He places the bottle back into its place in the case. “Witcher elixir. There are too many people here for me to trust my senses as they are.” 

“Are you going to tell me your theory now?”

“Originally, as I told you, I thought Fiona DeNevers death had nothing to do with the murder-suicide in 1957. When Osenga mentioned the grave robbery, I changed my theory. I thought, perhaps, someone might be trying to reenact the legend. Perhaps they stole the body in order to give credit to the idea Catherine Williams was, in fact, haunting the town, taking Sarah Benning’s revenge, according to the supposed curse.”

“Were you able to get their scent from those scraps of clothing?”

“No. But I did find something interesting. The fabric smelled like ash.”

Alex raises her brows in surprise. “The robber burned the bodies?”

Strand suddenly wavers in his seat. He places a hand out, grasping the edge of the table to steady himself.

“Are you okay?” Alex asks, rising from her seat.

Strand waves her away. “The elixir is beginning to take effect. I’m fine.”

“What’s it like? The elixir, I mean.”

“Imagine you’re flipping through channels on a television. Imaging you’ve flipped suddenly between standard definition to high definition. Everything is clearer, sharper, brighter. Where before you believed yourself to have no issues with clarity, you can now distinguish between each eyelash of the reporter on the screen. You could count them if you wanted to. 

“But imagine it isn’t just your sight affected. Sound is louder, more clear. You can hear the hitch between each breath of the co-anchor as they wait for their cue. You can smell not only their perfume, but the scent of the pets they keep at home, what they fed their children for breakfast, the soaps they washed with the night before.”

“Wow,” Alex says, trying but failing to imagine living her life like that. “That sounds really overwhelming.”

“It can be. It’s also exhausting, mentally and physically.”

“So, we should probably find our guy fast, right?” Alex drinks the rest of her coffee, forsaking the whipped cream still left in the bottom of her cup, and tosses the plastic cup into the nearby trash bin.

As he slings the strap of his case onto his shoulder, Alex asks, “So, are we looking for someone who smells like ash? That’s...got to fit a lot of people. People who smoke, people who burn candles or incense. How will you know you’re on the right track?”

“Because this is no ordinary fire,” Strand says, then apropo to nothing, asks, “Do you know how a magician acquires their power?”

Alex shakes her head. She doesn’t think he means the kind that pull rabbits from top hats.

“They draw it from the elements. Water, for instance, is the easiest. It can be drawn from the very earth itself, or, with more practice, from the air.”

“And fire?”

“It is inadvisable to draw from fire. Not even the most powerful magicians dare draw from fire. It’s more likely to control the magic-user than for the magic-user to bend it to their will. And in its wake it leaves death and destruction.”

“You mean the grave-robber is someone who can do magic? Someone who made the mistake of playing with fire?”

“Precisely.”

 

The party rages onward. Music blares from speakers, people laugh and scream in mock terror. Children chase each other making various monster noises. One crashes into Strand’s legs, bounces off and lands on his backside on the ground, only to be torn away by his mother, who shouts at him over the din to be more careful.

As Strand guides her through crowded streets, Alex feels a little like a hunter with a bloodhound. Every so often, Strand turns his face up to the sky and inhales. He’ll cock his head to the side, listening intently. And several times, he changes direction, suddenly and without warning. Alex’s feet hurt, but she doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t want to distract him with questions or complaints.

Strand stops in his tracks. Alex, even with all of her attention on him, nearly collides with the solid wall of his back. “What is it?”

“She’s here.”

“She?”

Strand turns around. He bends close, breathing the words into her ear. “In the alley. The figure from the video. Stay here.”

Alex shivers at his proximity. “I’m going with you.”

Strand’s fingers trace the air in front of her face. “No, you’re not. You’re going to stay here. You’re going to run the second you sense danger.”

Alex opens her mouth to say something...and closes it. She blinks, but trying to remember what she’d been about to say is like grasping a handful of fine sand. All she can feel is the urge to do exactly as Strand says. “I’m going to stay here.”

“And?” Strand asks.

“Run if it gets dangerous. But I don’t understand, why would I be in danger?”

“You won’t be. I’ll keep you safe, Alex.” He hesitates, before pushing a lock of Alex’s hair behind her ear.

He’s already moving away, but Alex thinks she hears him say, “I will _always_ keep you safe.”

It could, of course, just have been her imagination.

 

“Witcher,” a voice hisses in the darkness.

Strand slips off his sunglasses. He folds them, slowly, carefully, and places them into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. “Sorceress.”

The figure steps out from shadow, but for Strand’s eyes, it looks only as if the woman steps out from underneath the shade of a tree. With the witcher’s elixir flowing through him, the otherwise pitch black alleyway is as clear as if the sun were shining down on it.

“Catherine Williams, I presume?”

The woman leans back, unleashing a cackle from behind the face stitched upside-down where her own should be. It isn’t plastic. Neither is it plaster. 

It’s human skin. Preserved by herb and magic.

“And you’re supposed to be the all-powerful witcher! Scourge of Chaos and its beastly children!”

Strand’s eyes widen. “Sarah Benning.”

“That’s _right_ ,” Sarah Benning says. She pushes the hood back from her head, her mousy brown locks lank with oil and sweat. “How do you like my face? _Beautiful_ , isn’t it? At first, I only wanted to use the magic to make me pretty, to make them stop laughing at me, but in the end, the magic made me into something _better_. These people. They’re celebrating me, you know. They’re celebrating their _love_ for me.”

“You think they love you?” Strand asks. “They don’t even know who you are.”

“I’ll _make_ them know me. I’ll _make_ them love me! I’ll kill _everyone_ who ever tormented me. I’ll kill their children. I’ll kill their children’s children. I’ll _decimate_ this entire godsforsaken town.”

Strand sets down his case. He kicks the mechanism to unlock it and it springs open. “I can’t let you do that. Denounce the magic, strip it from yourself, and I’ll take you to the authorities.”

Benning laughs again, her entire body shaking with it. “And if I don’t? What will you do, witcher?”

“Kill you.” He says it simply, matter-of-factly, as he bends to retrieve his sword from its velvet resting place.

“I can’t let you do that,” Benning taunts. She says something under her breath, Elder Speech spoken in sing-song, like a child teasing another on a playground.

Strand is fast--faster with the elixir coursing through his veins. He dodges, spinning out of the way of Benning’s spell. The dumpster behind him crumples like paper.

Benning sends spell after spell, throws them with neither power nor finess, hampered by the darkness, but also relying on it to keep her safe. Strand jumps out of the way of each. He rolls across the dirty alley floor, intending to strike Benning from behind. When he rights himself, his sword goes through thin air.

Benning, at the far end of the alley wags her finger at him. “Ah, ah, ah.”

Strand curses, dodges a fireball aimed at his head.

Benning attempts to run, out from the alley and into the streets. Strand knows he mustn’t let her escape. He can’t lose her amongst the revelers. Nor can he allow anyone else to get hurt. 

He can’t let Benning go. Not with Alex waiting across the street.

He makes the Sign of Yrden at Benning’s feet. The glowing purple runes don’t trap her completely, not like they would a spectre, but it slows the witch down long enough for Strand to catch her. Taking a fistful of her hood, he throws Benning to the ground further inside the alley. 

He smiles, hideously, as he stalks toward her. Benning scrabbles at the debris littering the alley in an attempt to get away from him. In her panic, she’s forgotten the magic within her. 

And in her panic, it’s easy to remember that--despite the thirty-one years since her supposed death--he’s still dealing a girl stuck at seventeen. The magic stunted her growth before she had a chance to fully develop, granting her the boon of extended youth, but also cursing her with the immaturity that comes with it.

“Denounce the magic,” he tells her, sword held at her throat.

She swallows. Her voice, when she speaks, is thick with despair and unshed tears. “No! It’s everything I have. Everything! Without it, I’m nothing.”

“With it, you’re just its pawn. You have no control of it.”

“I’ll learn! You’ll see! You’ll all see! And then I’ll come to take my revenge!” The young sorceress twists her fingers in a complicated pattern and begins to speak an incantation.

Fast, faster than Benning can complete her spell, Strand brings his silver sword down. With his superior strength, her breastbone cracks with ease. The sword sinks into the girl, through layers of cloth, and skin, bone, and muscle, until the tip is embedded into the pavement.

Benning makes a sound of pain and surprise. She coughs, gagging on blood. It spills from the empty eye sockets of Catherine William’s face. She looks at him, bloody hands reflexively grasping the blade of his sword. “I just wanted to be pretty. I just--”

Benning goes limp. Dead.

“Richard!”

Strand turns to see Alex Reagan standing at the entrance to the alleyway. He jerks his sword out of the body of Sarah Benning and hurries toward her. “Alex, stay where you are.”

“You did something to me, didn’t you? That was some kind of spell, wasn’t it? What the hell--is that blood?”

He pulls her by the arm, away from the alley. “Don’t look. Trust me, please. Don’t look, don’t go in there.”

Her eyes are wide. Her hands hover over him, his chest, his arms, his face. “You’re covered in blood. Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine. It’s not mine.”

“Are you sure? Oh my God, we need to call an ambulance. I need to--I know some first aid. I should go check--”

“Alex, no,” he says. He tries to grasp for her, but a wave of dizziness washes over him. He barely manages to brush her shoulder before he falls back against the wall of the building behind him. “She’s dead, Alex. You can’t help her.”

Retching, as soon as Alex comes across the body of Sarah Benning. His sensitive hearing picks up the sound of her fingernails digging into concrete, of the pathetic sounds she makes as salty tears run down her face. And then the sound and smell of sick splashing against the pavement.

He should follow her. He should pull her back from the scene of death, take her into his arms and comfort her.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t want to see her reaction, now that she knows what he’s capable of. He’d tried to warn her. Tried to to tell her death follows in his footsteps. Tried to keep her safe, even from himself. He closes his eyes, lets the exhaustion hit him with all the force of a speeding truck.

He lets the darkness overtake him.

Already unconscious, he doesn’t feel the impact of the sidewalk as it rushes up to meet him.


	13. Dreams

Boyd Osenga hates the Festival of the Upside-Down Face. It’s basically a second Halloween. 

Osenga hates Halloween, too.

Every other night, the town behaves as it should. Population under 10,000, there’s not a lot of crime. Most people know each other, do right by each other. He grew up in Charlesworth, followed in his daddy’s footsteps, rose up through the ranks of law enforcement, got himself elected sheriff, instead of going off to some big city, pretend to play superhero.

Cops and robbers stops being fun as soon as someone gets shot.

No, he likes the quiet life of small town sheriff. Mostly he deals with drunks or petty thieves.

But it all goes to hell on nights like Halloween. And worse during the Festival of the Upside-Down Face. 

Tourists. Fuck tourists. Don’t know how to behave, get drunk in the streets en masse, cause destruction of property, pick fights. And now this.

Osenga hops out of his SUV, lights still flashing, siren silent. The crowd isn’t so busy here, further away from Main Street, where the real festivities are underway. Blessing, really. He wants to keep this incident quiet, at least until the local paper hears of it. But now, the attention will be on the Festival itself. Instead of a dark alleyway, where the witcher lays sprawled out on the sidewalk, his head in the lap of the cute reporter. 

The reporter looks like she’s been crying. Her eyes are red, her cheeks puffy. She runs blood-stained hands through the witcher’s dark hair, leans over him and whispers something. A plea to wake up, maybe. She looks at Osenga as he approaches.

“Ms. Reagan,” he says.

“In the alley,” she says. “She’s dead. He had to kill her.”

“Who’s dead? What happened to him?”

She shakes her head, looking miserable. “I don’t know. I went to check, to see if there was anything I could do. I know--I know a bit of first aid and I--I came back out and he was like this. He won’t wake up.”

Fucking witchers. Why’d Marina have to go and hire him for? More trouble than they’re worth, if anyone was to ask him.

Which, of course, no one did. Least of all the mayor.

Osenga leaves Reagan with the witcher. Nothing he can do for a mutant. At least the freak is breathing. He stalks into the alleyway, instead.

He sweeps his flashlight through the gloom. By the looks of things, there was some kind of fight. Dumpster’s crumpled like a wadded up piece of paper. The brick wall, previously decorated with graffiti, has got a scorch mark the size of a dodgeball. Grooves have been carved out of the pavement, like a butter knife through margarine. Further down, Osenga spots the pool of blood. In it, a body.

“Christ,” Osenga mutters. 

The body belongs to a girl, no more than a teenager. On her face, stitched with honest to fuck wire, is another human face. Upside-down, because of _course_ it is.

It’s the figure from the CCTV recording, Osenga has no doubts about that. But who is she? 

He snaps on a pair of gloves. Underneath the hooded jacket she wears, she’s got nothing in her pockets. Nothing to identify her with. No wallet, no phone. They’ll have to run her prints, maybe check her dental records. He wonders if there’s parents at home, worrying themselves sick. Wonders if they think their daughter is just out having a good time at the Festival, or if there’s a missing person's report out already.

He radios for his deputy to come clean up the mess. Reminds her to do it quiet-like, so as not to draw attention from the Festival. It’ll look bad for him--and the rest of the town--if word were to get out Osenga let a witcher out on the streets, out to murder some teenaged girl instead of taking her in quietly, as Osenga would have done.

Fucking witchers. Think they can solve everything with murder, thanks to some ancient rite. Basically grants them a licence to kill. Meanwhile, they leave the rest of the work--the clean up, paperwork, the privilege of telling the bad news to loved ones left behind--to the professionals.

Osenga leaves the alley. “He wake up at all yet?”

Reagan shakes her head. Her eyes are still wet, shining in the light of the streetlamp.

“You okay?”

She nods, the movement shakey. “I’m fine.”

“Mind telling me what happened?”

Reagan sniffles. For a moment, he thinks she might burst into tears. “I don’t know. He did something. A spell, I think. He wanted me to stay out of the way, run if there was any danger. It...wore off. But by then, she was already dead.”

Osenga stifles the urge to curse. They’ve basically got no information until they can rouse the witcher. “We need to take him to a hospital?”

Hospital seems to be the magic word. The witcher stirs, blinks his eyes open, stares blearily out of the freakiest eyes Osenga has ever seen. “Alex?”

“Richard! Are you okay?”

The witcher tries to sit up, but he doesn’t make it very far. “Just...need to sleep. Effects of the elixir.”

“Hey,” Osenga says. The witcher’s eyes are already closing. “You got some explaining to do, first.”

“‘M sorry,” the witcher says, voice breathy as he slips back into unconsciousness. “Alex…”

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Alex says. But even Osenga can tell the witcher is dead to the world.

“Suppose we should get him back to the hotel,” Osenga says. He’s not looking forward to dragging the dead-ass weight of the mutant, but no one can ever accuse him of not being a gentleman. There’s no way the cute little reporter will be able to get the witcher into bed all by herself.

...maybe not while he’s unconscious, anyway.

Together they carry the witcher between them. He’s freakishly tall, making it difficult to fold his limbs into the back seat, even in Osenga’s roomy SUV. By the time they manage it, Osenga’s deputy has arrived with the CSU guys. Quickly and quietly, they get to work, cameras flashing, evidence bags at the ready.

Once at the hotel, Osenga helps again to get the witcher to his room.

Another perk of being a witcher, Osenga figures. Hotels have been booked for months, on account of the Festival. He and his reporter friend must have made a few enemies, kicking people out of their rooms almost at the last minute. But fortunately, the rooms are on the first floor. Had Osenga had to navigate the elevator, or even, by God, stairs, he would had to mutiny. Let the witcher get himself back to bed. 

Osenga is getting too old for this shit. And mutant witchers aren’t worth the visit to the chiropractor Osenga’s lesser, human bones will undoubtedly need. 

The blood proves to be something of a problem. Osenga wants to drop the witcher onto the bed, let the freak pay the damages to the sheets by himself. But Reagan, of course, is much more considerate.

“We should, um, get him out of his clothes. There’s blood everywhere.”

Osenga waits for Reagan to take the reins, but she hangs back. A faint blush stains her cheeks and Osenga sighs.

So they aren’t fucking. He’d have sworn on a stack of cash that the witcher and his side-kick were screwing. 

“Go on then,” he tells her. “I’ll get him cleaned up. You can go back to your room. Get some sleep. I want to see the both of you bright and early tomorrow, tell me what’s going on with the girl, why she had to die, and so on. Go on, I’ve got this.”

She reluctantly backs out of the room, her eyes on the witcher as if it’s the last time she’ll ever see him.

“Goddamn lovebirds,” Osenga says. “Only thing worse than Halloween or this Goddamned festival is Goddamned lovebirds.”

He cleans the blood from the witcher’s face with a cloth, gets what he can out of the witcher’s dark hair. He wrestles the witcher’s tall form out of his suit jacket, nearly bursts a couple of the tiny buttons on the witcher’s once-white shirt as he unbuttons it. He rolls his eyes and pulls the witcher’s shoes from his feet, then shucks the mutant out of his slacks. Osenga tosses all of it into a corner. It’ll need to be thrown out, but he’s not the witcher’s mother. The witcher can deal with that himself.

He leaves the witcher tucked into the hotel sheets, turns out the lights, and finally, finally heads back to the station.

The witcher sleeps on.

 

Alex can’t sleep. Not after the events of the day.

Her eyes ache from crying. Her throat still burns after throwing up. Her stomach still hasn’t settled.

She can still see the blood soaked body of the girl with the upside-down face whenever she closes her eyes. She can still smell the metallic scent of blood, mixed with the cloying, decaying trash and urine reek of the alleyway. She’s already scrubbed herself raw in the shower, thrown her clothes into a plastic bag and buried it in her suitcase, but she imagines it still clings to her. She wonders how long it’ll be until she finally feels clean again.

Alex rolls over, pulling the hotel quilt over her head. She tries to clear her mind, tries to imagine the color as Strand taught her.

It only reminds her of Strand.

Now, in the quiet darkness of her room, Alex wonders if it isn’t only the sight of the dead girl keeping her awake. She wonders if Strand has woken up, wonders if she should check on him. She wonders if the sight of his chest rising and falling under hotel blankets will soothe away her anxiety. Would she finally be able to sleep after convincing herself of his presence?

But no, she should let him sleep.

She tries again to think of her color. 

When she first learned to meditate, Alex started with yellow. A bright, cheerful yellow, capable of chasing away any shadow. It was warm. It moved through her like the sun rising over the horizon. It eased her fears and the tension in her muscles.

She can no longer find the yellow within her. No matter how hard she focuses, it changes, morphs into a bright, crystalline blue. It flows through her body like quicksilver. It’s heavy, but it doesn’t smother her. Rather, it makes her feel safe, protected.

She would have to be dense not to understand the symbology behind the blue.

As Strand advised her, she lets that thought come to her, doesn’t fight it. Instead, she fills herself up with the blue, starting from her toes.

She has to do so several times before she eventually falls into sleep.

 

A black cat sits at the edge of her bed. It lifts its paw daintily to it’s mouth and begins to clean itself.

Alex sits up, grasping the hotel sheets to her chest. “Cat?”

The windows are closed, the curtains shut. The door to her hotel room is bolted shut, just as it was when Alex went to bed. Unless the cat was in her room before she’d gone to sleep, she has no idea how it could have gotten there.

“Are you lost, kitty?” she asks.

The cat ignores her. It continues to clean its paw without acknowledging Alex’s presence. 

A shadow begins to creep over her bed. At first, Alex thinks it must belong to the cat, but when she looks, the shadow isn’t attached to the cat. In fact, the shadow disobeys all laws of physics. It’s not attached to anything. It looms in the opposite direction of all other shadows in Alex’s room.

The cat’s hackles rise. It’s ears press flat against its head. It hisses, but the shadow continues to loom closer, closer. The cat doesn’t give up, however. It growls and spits, swipes at the shadow with its claws. Alex has the distinct impression the cat is trying to protect her.

Alex reaches over, switches on the lamp on her bedside table, certain it will dispel the shadow. The last thing she sees before she wakes up is the cat looking at her.

It’s eyes are blue.


	14. Unwelcome IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains scene of ~passion~ between the witcher and Coralee.
> 
> Don't worry. Alex and Strand are endgame and there WILL be sinning between them. But this is the "Past Coralee/Strand" part of the tags, just so you know. :P

He wakes to the scent of herbs and magic, sandalwood and violets. The sun streams in through the wooden slats of the walls, through the roof thatched with straw. The body beside him is warm. Familiar.

Coralee sleeps curled next to him. He watches her breathe, syncs his own breathing in time with hers. He hates himself for the regard he still has for her. After all this time, after all she’s done to him, he should hate her.

But he doesn’t. 

He only harbors hatred for himself, for being fool enough to ever believe he could be loved. He, the freak, the mutant. The witcher.

He tries to roll over onto his back when a small hand stops him. Her hands are delicate, her fingers long, the nails painted a royal purple, preserved from her work as an enchantress by a spell of some sort. Or perhaps the paint is only the work of a Glamour or illusion. He wants to kiss each one, linger over the salty taste of her skin.

He doesn’t. Simply says, voice rough with sleep, “Coralee.”

“Ryszard.” She watches him with hazel eyes. Her hand, still upon his chest, plays with the ties of his shirt. 

“What happened to my armor?” he asks. He fights the shiver that threatens to rock him when her fingers delve beneath his shirt. She traces a scar, newly healed, still sensitive to her touch.

“I took it off you. You passed out so thoroughly, I thought you might have taken an elixir to get here.”

“No,” he says. This time, when Coralee drags her nails across his skin, he cannot suppress the shiver.

Coralee’s eyes burn. The smirk which plays about her lips tells him she knows exactly what she’s doing to him.

His cock twitches in his trousers, already half-hard upon waking.

The witcher growls and rolls. Coralee hums in pleasure as his weight settles over her. Her legs spread for him, cradling his hips between them.

“Come, witcher,” Coralee says. She rolls her hips, grinds against his arousal. “Just like old times.”

“Old times,” he says. He hides the bitterness in his voice by raking his teeth over the column of her bronzed throat. “What about your sorcerer? Is he not enough to satisfy you?”

Coralee gasps. “No one has ever quite satisfied me as you have, Ryszard.”

He should leave. He should get up, don his armor. Leave her aching and want as she has left him, so many times in the past.

He doesn’t.

He kisses her. Hard and punishing, his lips crush hers. It soon devolves into something desperate, however. Something sloppy and open-mouthed, their tongues uncoordinated as they each try to explore the other.

Coralee grasps him by his shoulders, her nails digging grooves in his skin, even through the cotton of his shirt. She grinds against him, the friction not quite enough with so many layers still between them.

He sits up, making Coralee pout her displeasure. He pulls the shirt over his head, tosses it across the room. Coralee’s pout turns to hunger. Her eyes rove over his chest, followed immediately by her hands.

She traces the contours of his muscles, down his pectorals, over his abdominals. They settle at his hip bones as she catalouges each of his scars with a healer’s eye, noting those which weren’t present when they met last.

The witcher kisses her to distract her. His hands skim her thighs, rucking up her nightgown as they go. He caresses the satin skin up to her waist, cups her breasts, briefly. He lifts the gown over her head, careful not to catch any of her hair.

She’s bare beneath the gown.

The witcher lifts a brow in question.

Coralee smirks in answer.

He places kisses along her collarbone, sucking none too gentle. He leaves a series of marks, his marks, marks he hopes she’ll carry until the heal naturally. He takes each of her breasts in his hands and kisses the swollen buds of her nipples. Coralee arches under his touch. Her breath hitches when he nibbles on the sensitive flesh and moans when he soothes the hurt with his tongue.

He kisses down her stomach, down and down until he reaches the patch of curls between her legs.

Coralee lifts her head, her expression expectant. 

He grins at her, his head between her thighs. The scent of her arousal is strong, her curls damp. He could take her now. He could thrust himself deep inside her, fuck her until they both lie panting, spent.

He will not, however. Not yet.

The witcher places a gentle kiss to her clit. Coralee sighs and tosses her head back, her eyes closed. He kisses her again, just as gentle, as he slides a finger into her wet heat. He sets an unhurried pace, circling her clit with his tongue as he thrusts first one finger, then two into her.

Coralee moans. Her hips buck upwards, seeking more pressure, more friction.

He pauses. Only to arrange her legs, hiking her knees over his shoulders for better access.

Coralee’s hands tangle themselves in his hair. She guides him with exacting pressure where she wants him. The witcher breathes a laugh, but follows her instruction, burying his face back into her sex.

He takes her clit into his mouth, traces ancient runes with his tongue. Coralee pants, cries out as he brings her closer to the edge.

He smiles wickedly as he pulls away. Coralee hits the mattress on either side of her in frustration.

“Patience,” he says. He kisses her inner thigh. He rakes his teeth over the sensitive skin. And when he believes her to have suffered enough, parts her curls and thrusts his tongue inside her.

Coralee fists her hands in the sheets. She arches her back and curses.

He fucks her with his tongue until her cries turn desperate. Until she clenches her legs around his head. Until he can tell her climax is close.

Again, he denies her release.

“Ryszard,” Coralee says, breathless, “please. Please, I beg of you.”

He grins. “You do, do you?”

“Ye--” she begins, but the rest of the word is lost when he grabs her ass, pulls her ever closer to his mouth. He suckles at her clit, causing her to moan. Her head tosses and turns against the sheets. Her fingers grasp at him, her nails scratching down his back. He thrusts two fingers into her, crooks them until he finds the sensitive place inside of her.

Coralee screams as her orgasm hits her. She holds herself taut as the wave crashes over her. Then, as if all the tension has washed out of her, she collapses onto the mattress with a breathless laugh.

The witcher’s cock strains against the ties of his trousers. He aches with desire. Without waiting for Coralee to get her breath back, he strips himself of his trousers and underclothes. 

Coralee readily opens for him, spreads her legs and allows him entrance. He pushes into her and groans. She’s hot and wet and ready, still clenching spasmodically around him with the echoes of her first orgasm.

Even satiated, it’s not long before Coralee cries out in pleasure once more. She wraps her legs around his waist, drives him faster, harder, deeper with the buck of her hips.

He swallows her moans with a kiss. In their need, their desperation, it can hardly be called such. He thinks she might even be saying something against his lips as they each fight for dominance, something more gasp than actual word. He thinks he hears, “By the goddess, Ryszard” and “I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you.”

Of course, even with his unnatural hearing, that cannot be right.

He sets a demanding pace, feels his own pleasure build. Like the charge of a spell just before its release, except stronger than any of the rudimentary magic he can perform. It’s intense, just as it always is with Coralee. He bites down at the junction between her neck and shoulder. She throws in another scream as she once more finds her release.

The witcher follows not long after. He drives himself into her, losing all sense of rhythm, all control. 

His orgasm hits him like a punch to the gut. He groans as he spills himself within her, breathes deeply the scent of sandalwood and violets, sweat, and sex. 

Coralee caresses his sweat-soaked hair as she too gains back her breath.

She laughs. “Why did I ever let you go?”

She had let him go. Time and time again. Each time, abandoning him without regard for his feelings.

Feelings, as a witcher, he’s not supposed to have.

Feelings which, despite himself, he can still feel deep inside of him, stirring at her closeness.

“I don’t know,” he says. He rolls out of the bed and begins to dress.

Coralee sits up, her hair a mess of tangles, her skin glowing, even in the dim light of her room. “Where are you going?”

“I only meant to drop off the girl. I have business to attend to elsewhere.”

“What? Now? Ryszard?”

He’s angry. It’s another feeling he isn’t supposed to have, but he lets it guide him. In stony silence, he collects his leathers and armor and dons them with practiced efficiency. 

He can feel her poking around and he glares at her, turning the full force of his strange eyes on her. “Stay out of my head.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong? Or are you going to storm out of here?”

“As ever,” he says, pulling on his boots, “I am incapable of storming anywhere.”

“Bullshit,” she says, startling him with her language. She’s still naked, her hands upon her hips. “You were fine a minute ago. Now you look at me with thunder in your brows and lightning in your eyes. You look like the goddess-blessed oncoming storm. What happened between then and now?”

“Thank you for the food and the use of your bed,” he says.

“Is that all this was to you?”

The witcher turns his back on her, furious at himself for being so affected by the hurt he sees in her expression. “We both know you’ll grow bored of me. You’ll go back to your sorcerer. For once, I am simply getting ahead of the curve.”

As he leaves, as he mounts Riven and gallops down the street and out of the city, he imagines he can still hear her cursing his name.


	15. Questions V

It’s been a week since the events in Charlesworth, Washington and Alex continues to worry for Strand. 

He’d explained to her the witcher’s elixir, how it’s essentially a powerful narcotic, toxic even to witchers. He’d gone on to say rest was all he needed, so when he disappeared for several days, Alex thought it was exactly what he was doing. But now, seeing him, dark circles under his eyes, skin even more pale than his usual albino porcelain, holding himself straight and stiff in his chair, Alex wonders if there might be something more going on.

After settling everything with Osenga, telling the sheriff who and what they were dealing with, he now skirts around the topic of Charlesworth, Washington and the Festival of the Upside-Down Face. He becomes drawn, reticent, every time she mentions it. Could he perhaps feel guilt for killing Sarah Benning?

She sits across from him at the Starbucks down the street from his office. He wears his sunglasses, of course, but Alex can still tell he refuses to meet her eyes. His fingers play with the wrapper to her straw, bending it, twisting it, pulling it straight, flattening it, only to do the same thing all over again. He hasn’t touched his tea.

If she were to hazard a guess, she would say he’s nervous. But what would a witcher ever have to feel nervous about?

Finally, she gets bored of carrying on the conversation all on her own. “You can tell me, you know.”

“What?”

“Something is bothering you, isn’t it? You can tell me.”

He shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

“I don’t think it is.” Alex frowns. “Is it something to do with the podcast?”

“No.”

For a moment, Alex doesn’t think he’ll continue. He surprises her when, with a surprising amount of emotion, he asks, “Why aren’t you angry with me?”

Alex blinks, surprised by the question. “What do you mean?”

“I made you a promise,” he says, “and not twenty-four hours passed before I broke it.”

“I mean, I was scared when I found you passed out, but that wasn’t on purpose.”

He stares at her. Alex wishes she could see his eyes to better understand his expression. “I killed someone, Alex.”

“Yeah, but you told us what happened. You had to kill her. The fire she drew her magic from caused her insanity. She would have kept killing if you hadn’t stopped her.”

Strand’s hands clench, crushing the straw wrapper in one of his fists. “I could have subdued her. I could have knocked her unconscious. The cases are rare, but there are institutions for people like her. They could have stripped the magic from her. Or helped her to control it. She could have served out a sentence. But instead I put a sword through her chest.”

The mother of three rowdy boys at the table behind Strand turns in her seat, her eyes wide. Alex stares at her until she gets the hint to mind her own business, but the tense line of her shoulders tells Alex she’s still listening.

Strand misinterprets her stern expression. He ducks his head, hiding behind the fringe of hair that falls out of its usual neat styling. “You put too much trust in me. But now, surely you must see it was misplaced.”

“You wouldn’t have killed her if you didn’t have to,” she says. “Your life was in danger, too.”

He shakes his head. “How can you so sure? You weren’t there. I cast a spell on you, forced you to do as I wished. Because, I--” He breathes out, heavily, head bowed. “You would have been better off hiring one of the other witchers, someone from the Wolf School. Or Griffin, perhaps. Not some psychopath from--”

“Is that what this is?” Alex asks, interrupting him. “You’re afraid I’ve finally seen you for who you truly are? The man you keep warning me about?”

He places his hands on the table, pushes himself up to stand. “I should never have agreed to this. Goodbye, Alex.”

He turns and begins to walk away. Without thought, she gets up to follow him, leaving everything at the table, her bag, her recorder, her cell phone. She grabs him by the arm, forcing him to stop and turn. “Hey. Right now, I have two problems with you. And you’re going to stand there and listen to me before you try to run away again, got it?”

He doesn’t answer, but he also doesn’t turn to leave, which Alex takes as a win.

“One,” she says, using her fingers to count her grievances, “don’t ever cast a spell like that on me again. I know you were trying to keep me safe, but that is _not_ how we do things.”

She waits for him to nod before continuing. “And two, you’re not a psychopath. I’ve done stories on psychopaths. I’ve even had to interview a couple. You’re not one of them. You feel guilt over your actions, you take into account how others feel. You didn’t kill Sarah Benning because you take pleasure in it. You did it because it’s your job to keep others safe from monsters. And what was Sarah Benning if not a monster?”

“A seventeen year old girl seduced by magic,” he says.

“Who killed several people. Who was going to keep killing. By her own admission.”

He breathes out again. “I never wanted you to see what I’m capable of. You...should hate me.”

“Well, I don’t. And if we’re going to add a third thing to the list it’s this: I am fully capable of coming up with my own opinions. I don’t need you to assume how I feel or try to influence it in any way. Not even if you think it’ll keep me safe. And if you want to know how I feel about a subject, you could just _ask_. Okay?”

“I will try,” he says.

“Good,” Alex says. She puts her arm in his and leads him back to their table. “Now, lets finish our drinks.”

 

Alex returns to her hotel room. She sets the plastic shopping bag with her microwave dinner down on the dresser and turns on the television. She flops back onto the bed, toes her shoes off, and sighs.

It’s been a long day. 

She should get a shower and eat dinner, but she can’t quite get the energy to make herself get up.

Alex wrestles her phone out of the pocket of her jeans. A little red flag sits atop her SMS app and Alex clicks into it. One missed message from Nic Puppy-Emoji Silver.

**Nic:** Haven’t heard from you. How’s the witcher treating you? 

He inserts a row of smiling devil emoji and another row of winking face emoji.

Alex rolls her eyes. She clicks into the options to send an image, intending to send him a selfie of her unamused face. She pauses when she notices a video she doesn’t remember recording. The thumbnail shows the underside view of the awning she and Strand were sitting under at Starbucks, earlier in the day.

Alex backs out of the SMS app. She clicks into the photos saved onto her phone, then into the video folder.

The video clip is only a few seconds long. The image doesn’t waver from underneath the awning. Over the murmur of the crowd, a distorted voice says, “He’s not who you think.”

Alex doesn’t waste any guesses as to the ‘he’ the voice refers to. 

She thinks back, but the only time she’d left her phone was to follow Strand. When they’d returned to the table, however, nothing seemed to be disturbed. And neither she nor Strand had noticed anyone suspicious lurking around their table. Could someone have hacked into her phone? But who? A listener? Someone who knows Strand? Someone from his past?

What could it mean, ‘he’s not who you think?’

To be honest, she’s beginning to get annoyed. She’s getting tired of people trying to manipulate her. She’s a professional reporter, not a princess in a tower. She doesn’t need to be protected. And she refuses to be scared away by stalker messages left on her phone.

Alex attaches the video to an email and sends it to Strand.

Her phone rings, not a minute later.

“That was fast,” she says.

“I was already checking my email,” he says, voice a deep grumble. “What is this?”

“Someone left a video on my phone. You heard it right? ‘He’s not who you think?’”

“Is that what you heard?”

Alex pauses, thrown off. “Uh, yeah. The voice is a little wonky, but you can still hear the words.”

“How can you be sure the words were ‘He’s not who you think?’”

“I don’t understand.” The conversation is beginning to frustrate her. She’s already on edge after finding the video in the first place.

“The brain is a complex organ, always looking for patterns. Sometimes it ascribes patterns which aren’t there, in order to help us make sense of the world around us. Perhaps the voice said ‘Get me my drink.’ We were at a Starbucks, after all.”

Alex frowns. “You can't apophenia your way out of this. I’m not stupid. Some creep left a message for me on my phone. A message clearly about _you_. Do you have any idea who would do something like this?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Alex listens to his soft breath before he says, “No.”

Alex has no idea if his answer is a lie.


	16. Questions VI

Alex doesn’t play the message on her podcast. Instead, she issues a challenge.

“If you’re out there, listening, I received your message. If you’re looking for attention, I’m not going to give it to you. But if you were serious about what you said, contact me directly. Don’t go leaving stalker messages on my personal phone.”

Nic thinks it’s a terrible idea. She’s almost inclined to agree with him. Not only because she’s just invited a possibly dangerous unknown person to reach out to her, but also because of the sheer volume of calls they receive at the office from people claiming to have left the message. It takes hours to sift through callers until they finally come upon something promising.

A man named Carl Jenkins leaves a voicemail one night, after hours. He repeats the message from her phone verbatim and invites Alex to meet him at a coffee shop in Chicago. He tells her to bring Strand.

“At least you’ll have a witcher with you,” Nic says. “I’ll feel better knowing you’ve got someone watching your back.”

“I’ve gone into situations way worse than meeting someone for coffee, Nic. Quit worrying.”

“I’m your producer,” Nic says. “It’s my _job_ to worry about you. Speaking of, how’s your sleep these days?”

Alex sighs. “Not good. I wake up after some seriously weird dreams and I can’t get back to sleep.”

Nic frowns. “You should see someone about that.”

“What, like a therapist?”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Nic says, “I guess? Or like a sleep expert. Or something?”

Alex rolls her eyes. If Strand’s meditation doesn’t work, she doubts anything else will. And she’s already read the horror stories people have written on the internet about their experiences with sleep medication. She’d rather skip all of that entirely. Better to just ride out her nightmares. “I’ll look into it.”

“Good, good.” Nic gives her a look that says he knows she has no intentions of looking into it.

 

Ruby looks up from her computer as Alex approaches her desk. Her hair falls into her face, dyed a bright red since the last time Alex has seen her. Her lips are painted a matte black. “Password?”

“Do I get a hint?” Alex asks.

Ruby makes a buzzer noise. “Password incorrect. You have two tries before you’re locked out.”

Alex sighs. She looks around the room, at a loss for guesses.

Ruby’s desk is cluttered with food wrappers, soda bottles, and figurines, none of which Alex recognizes. Music plays low on her computer speakers, but Alex is unfamiliar with the clash of instruments, which to Alex sounds more like noise than actual song. Her T-shirt, like her jeans, is black, screen-printed with the faces of three men and a skull smoking a cigarette--the logo of a popular true crime podcast.

“Podcasts rule?” Alex hazards.

Ruby looks down at her shirt, then back at Alex, her face breaking into a grin. “Yeah, okay. Good enough. Go on in.”

Alex smiles. “Thanks, Ruby.”

“Eh,” Ruby shrugs. “You’ve got me in a good mood.”

“Oh?” Alex asks, “Any particular reason?”

Rolling her eyes in an exaggerated fashion, Ruby says, “Not that it’s any of your business, but my girlfriend is in town. She’s picking me up to go to lunch.”

The door to Strand’s office opens. 

“Charlie is coming?” Strand asks, from the doorway. “Here?”

Ruby’s expression turns instantly contrite. “Oh, hey, Dr. Strand. Forgot about your freaky hearing. I meant to tell you. Charlie will be stopping by.”

Strand frowns. “She never mentioned.”

“You’ve been a little preoccupied, lately.” Ruby nods her head at Alex, none too subtle. “I think she’s worried. And, you know, she _is_ my girlfriend. She’s technically coming to see me.”

Strand’s expression is virtually unreadable. He shakes himself out of it and turns to Alex. He smiles. “Alex, I apologize. Come in.”

Alex waves goodbye to Ruby, “Have fun on your date.”

“Thanks, little bird,” Ruby says. She goes back to her computer, but Alex notices her watching Strand out of the corner of her eye.

“So,” Alex asks, as soon as the door closes, “who is Charlie? Besides Ruby’s girlfriend. You don’t seem very happy to have her around.”

“It’s, ah, rather the opposite,” Strand says. “Charlie is my daughter. I enjoy having her visit.”

Alex blinks, too surprised to utter a word. She recovers quickly. “What do you mean, daughter? I thought witchers are sterile.”

“We are.”

“Then, how?”

“A contract gone wrong,” Strand says. “Her parents were slaughtered by a leschen--a relict from a time before man. They were hiking in a forest, lost their way and wandered into the monster’s territory. I wasn’t able to save them.”

“But you saved her?”

“I found her hiding under a felled tree branch. She was three.”

“That must have been horrible for her.”

Strand nods. “She had nightmares for years, afterward.”

“And how did she and Ruby meet?” Alex can’t help but ask. She’s still reeling from the fact Strand has a daughter. A daughter he never told her about. “Through you?”

Strand’s lips tilt in a little smile. “Again, it was the opposite. Charlie referred Ruby to me. They both graduated from the same boarding school.”

Alex raises her brows. “Boarding school?”

“I wanted Charlie to have nothing but the best when it came to her education. And I…” He turns away, busying himself with clipping the strap to his black witcher’s case. “I was afraid I couldn’t provide her with everything she might need. Emotionally.” Strand sighs as he checks the locking mechanism on the case.. “She’s never quite forgiven me for sending her away.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Alex says. 

“It is as it is,” he says, repeating a phrase Alex has heard him say once before. She wonders if it’s some kind of witcher mantra or if it’s just Strand’s way of coming to terms with unfortunate events.

“Still,” she says. But upon seeing the set of his shoulders, Alex changes the subject. “Ready to go?”

He hefts the strap of his case onto his shoulder. “After you.”

Ruby is gone from her desk when they exit Strand’s office. No music plays from her speakers. Her computer is dark. Alex looks to Strand, but if he’s disappointed at being unable to see his daughter, his expression betrays nothing. 

 

Alex taps her foot against the sidewalk. She and Strand have waited an hour for Carl Jenkins to meet with them, but he’s either running very late or doesn’t plan to show up at all.

“How much longer do you wish to wait?” Strand asks. He sits back in his chair, his legs crossed. Alex can see herself reflected in his sunglasses and compared to his relaxed posture, she looks like a nervous wreck.

Alex relaxes her two-handed grip on her coffee. She sits up straight and runs a hand through her hair. “Ten more minutes?”

“If you wish,” he says. Then, gently, “You know he isn’t coming.”

“I figured. But let’s give him ten more minutes, just to be sure.”

Strand nods.

Alex debates with herself in the ensuing silence. She wants to ask more about Charlie, but like Coralee, she seems to be a sore subject with the witcher. She doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable, but as usual, she wants to know everything about him. Including his adopted daughter.

She’s just about gathered the courage to say something when Strand’s phone rings. He checks the caller ID and pushes himself away from the table. “Excuse me, I have to take this.”

He leaves Alex alone at their table. She pulls out her own phone to check her PNWS email account. Perhaps Carl Jenkins needed to reschedule at the last minute?

A shadow falls over her. Alex looks up just as a man sits down across from her. He’s gorgeous, with bright blond curls and startlingly green eyes. Like Strand, he wears a finely tailored suit.

He smiles, but something about it is off. “Hello, Alex.”

“Excuse me? Are you Carl?”

He continues to smile at her serenely. 

The chill of fear shoots down Alex’s spine. She glances around for Strand, but he’s yards away with his back turned to her, his phone pressed to his ear.

“You put that message on my phone. What did you mean, ‘he’s not who you think?’”

Silence.

“If you aren’t going to speak, why did you agree to meet with me?”

Jenkins gets up from the table. He picks up Strand’s coffee, takes a sip from it.

Alex stands, as well. “Hey. What the hell--”

“Never trust a witcher, Alex. Everything they touch turns to ash.” He takes another sip from Strand’s coffee, before tossing it into a nearby trash can, like a basketball into a hoop. “Careful, lest you get burned.”

He walks away, hands in his pockets, until Alex loses sight of him in the lunch-rush crowd.

Alex balls her fists. She sits back down in her chair with a frustrated, “Goddammit.”

Strand returns, an apologetic expression on his face. “I’m sorry, that was Charlie--”

He tilts his head and even with his sunglasses on, Alex knows he’s examining her with his keen cat eyes. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“You missed Carl Jenkins.”

“What?”

“You missed Jenkins. He was only here for a minute, but he took your coffee. He drank some of it, then threw it out.”

Strand frowns. “Did he say anything?”

“Only that I shouldn’t trust a witcher. Which is ridiculous considering out of the two of you, he was the one acting like a creep.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Alex says, “he did _steal_ your coffee. And there was definitely something offputting about him. The way he looked at me. His smile. Like a freaking shark or something.”

“I’m sorry I was not here. He must have waited until I left the table to approach you.”

“Then why would he ask for me to bring you along? What was the point of meeting me if he only wanted to tell me not to trust you? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Strand’s frown deepens. “I am not keeping secrets from you, Alex.”

Alex laughs, but it isn’t pleasant. She’s getting _really_ tired of people trying to manipulate her. “Oh yeah? What about Charlie?”

Strand shakes his head. “I never kept Charlie a secret from you.”

“You just never thought to bring up the fact that you have a daughter?”

“No, I--”

“Save it, Strand.” She sighs. She feels suddenly and completely exhausted, despite the three cups of coffee she’s had this morning. “ I’m _tired_. I’m going back to my hotel room. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

He looks as if he wants to say something more. But instead, he nods. He picks up his witcher’s case and, without a word, walks in the direction of his office.


	17. Dreams II

Alex can’t sleep.

But, really, what else is new?

She groans and rolls over, hikes the hotel comforter over her head, shutting out the world.

It doesn’t work. She’s still bombarded with thoughts. Her mind continues to replay the day. Finally connecting with Ruby, even the slightest bit. Learning about Charlie. Meeting Carl Jenkins, seeing his predator’s smile, watching him drink Strand’s coffee, and hearing him tell her not to trust the witcher. The hurt the witcher tried so hard to conceal from her when Alex told him off.

She shouldn’t have said what she did. Strand has every right not to tell her about every aspect of his life. Including the daughter with which he seems to share a strained relationship with.

She groans and rolls again, twisting herself in the comforter. She isn’t sure if the sudden heat comes from her cocoon of blankets or the guilt that churns in her stomach.

She unrolls until she can throw the blankets from her. They slide from the edge of the bed to the floor, but Alex doesn’t bother to rescue them. Instead, she tries to arrange herself in a comfortable position.

She thinks of her color.

She doesn’t attempt to find the sunny yellow within her. She goes straight to the blue. Crystalline, clear blue. Quicksilver. Heavy. But also cool, like spring water on a hot summer’s day.

She breathes. She fills herself completely with the blue. It relieves some of the heat from her skin. It relaxes her muscles, pressing her into the mattress. Her thoughts, for the first time since she tried meditation, are easier to keep at bay. Her mind is clear.

 

Alex opens her eyes. Before her, a field of green. A couple, a man and a woman in their sixties, stand with her.

“Hello?”

Neither the woman nor the man acknowledge her.

“Where are we?” she asks, louder.

The couple ignore her.

Alex looks around. Her surroundings are hazy, blanketed by a light fog. Across the field sits a large building, made from stone. It looks like a castle, but not. The longer she looks at it, the more the building morphs, until none of the shapes are recognizable to Alex. Non-Euclidean spires shoot into the air, until the tops are lost in the fog. The towers bend and lean. The battlements wind and dip. 

Alex shakes her head and blinks, dizzy.

The older woman waves the older man to stand in front of the building. In her hands is a video camera--old, recording onto tape rather than a digital memory card.

“Okay,” the woman says. “Now, where are we?”

“You know where we are,” the older man complains. He kicks at the dirt at his feet, obviously uncomfortable with being in front of the camera.

“Say it for the camera,” the woman instructs.

The man rolls his eyes. “Your sister’s the only person who’s going to watch this.”

The woman makes a frustrated noise and lowers the camera. “This is the _one_ vacation we’ve had in nearly fifty years. I want to have _something_ to show for it.”

“Fine, fine,” the man says. “Let’s give it another go.”

“Thank you.” The woman raises the camera again. She waves at the man, as if to say “action.”

“Here we are at Glowsh--ah, what’s it called again?”

The woman sighs. “Glushka.”

“Right. Here we are at Glushka Monastery. As you can see, we can’t get real close. But, ah, there’s a building. And a whole not of nothing else-wise. It’s cold and--”

“Oh my God!” the woman shouts. The camera shakes in her hand. Her other hand covers her mouth, stifling a scream.

Alex and the man follow her gaze, just in time to see a figure in a pale grey robe throw itself from the ramparts. But by the time the body should hit the ground, it disappears. As if it were never there.

Alex blinks to make sure her eyes aren’t playing tricks on her. But when she opens them again, she’s somewhere different.

The walls are made from the same dark stone as the outside of the monastery, decorated with woven tapestries to keep out the chill. The room is lit with flickering candles, but the flames are not enough to keep out the majority of the dark. 

Alex stands in the corner. In the center of the room is a large table. Sitting at the table are, at least, fifteen men, all dressed in pale grey robes. A woman also sits at the table. A man, dressed in jeans and a polo, stands at her side.

The woman draws circles on the paper. The man, her assistant, asks, “Are you the brother Ivan, who fell from the tower?”

The woman, eyes closed, face turned to the ceiling scratches out a large, looping “No.”

The assistant tears the paper away, but the woman never stops drawing circles. 

“Are you the boy Nicholas?” The man asks.

The woman again scratches a “no” into the paper. The man tears it away.

“Are you the child Sascha?”

Another “no.”

The assistant frowns. “Are you a child?”

The woman’s lips turn up in a smile. The pencil digs harder into the paper. “No.”

“Are you of this world?”

The smile grows into something cruel. “No.”

The assistant’s eyes widen. He looks around the room, at the expectant faces of the monks at the table. “W-what is your name? What are you called?”

The woman’s eyes open. They’re white, rolled so impossibly far back into the woman’s head that Alex can’t seen even a hint of her irises. The woman hisses something, the word unintelligible, her white eyes locked on Alex.

Something furry touches Alex’s legs. She jumps, her heart pounding fiercely in her chest. She looks down to see the blue eyed black cat. It winds between her legs, it’s bottle brush tail hooked like a question mark.

A shadow looms over the table. It looks as if it grows straight out of the white-eyed woman. Unlike a real shadow, it looks almost tangible. Alex can see the outline of a tall being, recognizes the outline of a face. The shadow reaches a tendril of darkness toward her, something like an arm, but too long, much too long.

The woman hisses again and Alex has the impression the woman is speaking for the shadow. She says, voice distorted, almost unrecognizable as human, “Darkness approaches. She will return. Darkness approaches. She will return.”

She repeats the mantra, over and over again. The cat at Alex’s feet spits and growls, as if to protect her.

Alex awakens to the ringing of the monstrous voice and the ominous words spoken by the white-eyed woman. 

She doesn’t bother trying to go back to sleep.

 

Alex texts Strand as soon as the sun peaks over the horizon. She doesn’t expect an answer, but either he’s already awake or an incredibly light sleeper, because not two minutes later, her phone buzzes with his reply.

They meet at another cafe. Alex orders coffee and a blueberry muffin. Strand also orders coffee, black, and a bowl of Greek yogurt, topped with freshly cut fruit. They sit in silence for a long while, each picking at their food, until Alex can no longer stand it.

“I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you yesterday. Whether you were keeping Charlie a secret from me or not, she’s really none of my business. I was on edge after meeting Jenkins and I--well, can you forgive me?”

“I can,” he says. And then, as if it weren’t clear enough. “I do. Forgive you.”

Some of the tension relaxes out of Alex’s shoulders. She hadn’t even realized it was there until she feels the weight lift. “Thank you.”

“It is no problem,” he says. “I...wanted to tell you about Charlie.”

“You didn’t have to. Really. As much as I want to know everything about you, I realize your life is your own. You’re allowed to keep private matters to yourself.”

Not for the last time, Alex wishes she could see beyond the dark lenses of his sunglasses. He stares at her for a long moment. “You...really wish to know everything about me?”

Alex flushes, her face and ears hot with embarrassment. “Well, yeah.”

He stares at her for another long moment. He clears his throat. “You mentioned in your text you had something to tell me. Something important.”

Alex sighs. Her fingers crumble a portion of her muffin into fine crumbs. “Yeah. I did. I do.” She flushes again, realizing she’s just repeated his words from earlier. “So, you know how I’ve been having trouble sleeping?”

Strand nods. “The meditation hasn’t helped?”

“That’s just it. I’ve been having weird dreams, but when I meditate, I have _really_ weird dreams. Terrifying dreams, actually.”

“How so?”

“So, last night, I dreamt I was at some kind of monastery. I think it was called Glooshkah?”

Strand straightens. “Glushka? How do you know that name?”

Alex frowns. “I didn’t. Not before the dream. Is that a real place?”

“It is. Tell me everything.”

Alex describes the dream, in detail. Strand is silent throughout and remains so for several minutes after Alex finishes speaking.

“What do you think it means?” Alex asks. Most of her muffin lays in ruins on her plate.

Strand reaches his hand across the table. “Touch your fingers to mine.”

Alex’s frown deepens, but she does as he asks. “Okay?”

“What do you feel?”

The same electric tingle buzzes through her fingers. It travels passed her palm, all the way up to her elbow. “It tingles. But it always does, doesn’t it?”

Strand sits back in his chair, taking his hand back and laying it in his lap. “You never said.”

“I thought that was just a witcher thing. Doesn’t everyone feel that when they touch you?”

“No. Normal humans don’t feel anything.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asks, a spike of anxiety shooting through her. “What do you mean normal humans?”

“For whatever reason, most humans will feel nothing but skin when they touch a witcher. Those with magic, however--it responds to something in witchers. The mutations, maybe. The rudimentary magic we’re able to perform--our Signs--perhaps.”

For a long moment, Alex has no idea what to say. But then the words burst out of her, her disbelief unable to stay contained. “Uh, Strand? I don’t _have_ magic. I think I would know.”

“True, magic usually manifests when the user is young.” Strand breathes out. “I can’t be sure without having an expert examine you. But I think you may be an oneiromancer.”

“What’s that?”

“Divination through dreams. Prophetic dreaming.”

Alex shakes her head. “This is insane. If I were having prophetic dreams, what the hell was I dreaming about a monastery for? What the hell does ‘darkness approaches, she will return’ even mean?”

Strand looks as if he doesn’t want to say anything. Perhaps he remembers his promise to her, however. Or, perhaps he is still sensitive to secrets after Alex accused him of hiding things from her. He says, “The monks at Glushka monastery are part of a group called the Order of the Cenophaes. They’re reclusive, secretive, thought to be a brotherhood of sorcerers. They wear pale grey robes, as you described, but not much else is known about them. Only that they’re dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“Please,” Strand says, entreaty in his voice, “listen to me. The Order of the Cenophaes has existed, hiding in plain sight, for centuries. Anyone attempting to investigate their Order disappears. Dead or perhaps worse. Leave it alone, don’t do any further research. Please.” He hesitates, looks down at the remains of his breakfast. “I cannot protect you from them if you get involved.”

Alex wants to smooth the worry line between his brows. She wants to tell him exactly what he wants to hear. But she can’t. “I can’t promise anything.”

Strand sighs. “Then all I can ask is for you to be careful.”

“I will,” Alex says. She collects the mangled remains of her muffin and the cup of melted, coffee flavored ice. “I should get going. My flight leaves in a few hours.”

It feels weird to leave on that note. On a promise she isn’t sure she can keep. But Alex is a reporter. She’s used to walking into dangerous situations, in search for the truth. And, if she truly is an oneiromancer, if her dreams really are prophetic, she must have dreamt about the Order of the Cenophaes for a reason. It must be important.

Alex intends to find out why.


	18. Tapes V

Alex sits across from Nic at the bistro table in his office. He sits back, one ankle crossed over his knee, hands in his lap. He’s wearing jeans, a plain green T-shirt, and a pair of striped knitted socks he received from as a gift from one of their sponsors. 

“So? How’d it go with Strand?” He waggles his eyebrows at her suggestively.

Alex rolls her eyes. “It was fine.”

“It doesn’t look fine. You’ve been moping around ever since I picked you up from the airport. Still not getting any sleep?”

“I have not been moping,” Alex says.

Nic shoots her a goofy look from under raised brows. “Oh, really? I could have sworn--”

“Okay, okay.” Alex laughs and puts her hands up in surrender. “Maybe I _have_ been moping.”

“Miss your witcher?”

“He’s not _my_ witcher.”

“My question still stands.”

Alex rolls her eyes again. Nic takes his role as her producer very seriously, but it doesn’t mean he ever _acts_ very seriously. “You’re such a child. There isn’t anything between us.”

“Maybe not _now_ ,” Nic says. “I admire your professionalism, by the way. But it won’t always be ethically questionable for you to get it on with the witcher. Once the story is over and done with, for instance.”

“I think,” Alex says, “as my producer, it might be ethically questionable for you to be urging me to ‘get it on’ with anyone, including the subject of my podcast.”

“Fine, fine. I thought we were talking as _friends_. But if you want to get down to business, let’s defeat those Huns.”

Alex gives him an unimpressed look. 

Nic sighs. “Fine, _don’t_ appreciate my Disney reference.” He straightens in his seat, leaning over the table so he can fold his hands in front of him. “Serious business, go. Whatcha got for me?”

After all this, Alex doesn’t know where to start. The beginning, probably, but where the hell does any of this mess even begin? 

“Strand thinks I might be an oneiromancer,” she says.

Nic frowns. “You can raise the dead?”

“Oneiromancy, not necromancy. It has to do with the dreams I’ve been having. Strand thinks they might be prophetic.”

“You can predict the future? Got any lottery numbers for me?”

“Nic, this is serious.”

Nic makes a concentrated effort into looking something approaching serious.”Sorry. I just don’t get it. I thought you were just having nightmares?”

Alex fiddles with the pen in front of her. “So did I. But then I had this dream about this monastery and apparently it’s a real place. I knew things I couldn’t have known.”

“Like what?”

“The name of the monastery. Glushka. I swear I’ve never heard of it. The monks inside are reclusive. But I knew the color of their robes. Strand says it’s a secret society, something called The Order of the Cenophaes. _And_ I looked it up, once I got back to Seattle. You can’t find anything about those guys, but there are pictures of the outside of the monastery and I _swear_ that’s the building I saw in my dream.”

Nic scratches at the back of his neck. “I don’t know. Coincidence? Maybe? Was there anything else?”

“I, uh,” Alex pops the cap of the pen off and on with her thumb. A faint heat begins to spread across her cheeks. “Strand’s skin. It feels...different, when I touch it.”

Nic’s eyes twinkle. A sly smile creeps onto his face. “Oh yeah? How _different_?”

“Shut up,” Alex says. “I didn’t mean it like that. You shook his hand--you didn’t feel anything weird. But for me, it’s kind of like touching a battery. Strand says it’s the magic in me responding to whatever they did to him to make him a witcher.”

“Huh,” Nic says, finally at a loss for words. “So, what does this all mean?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I must have dreamt about it for a reason, right? Strand told me to stay away from it, that it could be dangerous, but what if the mysterious Order of the Cenophaes has something to do with the reappearance of the monsters? What if it’s a clue to solving the Black Tapes?”

“Well, if I know you--and I do--I know you’re not going to leave it alone until you find answers.”

“You don’t think I should listen to Strand?” Alex asks. 

“It’s your story. Not Strand’s. And how dangerous could a few monks turn out to be?”

Alex sighs. She feels validated now, after talking it out with Nic. It _is_ her story. And she wants to find the meaning behind the white-eyed woman’s words. What darkness approaches? Who will return? 

She can’t stop thinking it all has to do with Strand’s Black Tapes.

“How is the research into Coralee going?” Alex asks. “Did the private investigator find anything?”

Nic sits back in his seat, resuming his relaxed posture. “Slow, at first. But I think we’re onto something now.”

“Oh?”

“So, we found a woman going by the name Coralee Strand. Could be a coincidence, I know. It isn’t like Strand is an uncommon surname or anything. But, according to MK, her paperwork is a little questionable. She’s not employed, doesn’t have unemployment benefits. The address on her driver’s license doesn’t technically exist. MK says she found a P.O. Box in the name of Coralee Strand, but when I made some calls, it looks like no one has gone to pick up mail there for years. 

“MK is going to keep investigating, but without a picture--or even a physical description of her--we won’t know whether we’ve got the right person. You think Strand could help us out with that?”

“I don’t know.” Alex forces herself to put the pen down on the table. “I haven’t exactly told him we were looking into Coralee.”

Nic scratches again at the back of his neck. “Is that a good idea?”

“Probably not,” Alex says, pushing herself up from the table, “I guess now is as good a time as any.”

As she leaves, Nic pumps his fist in the air. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”


	19. Questions VII

Strand agrees to a call over Skype. Alex doesn’t want to deliver the news without being able to look at his face. His emotions are hard to read, at the best of times, and Alex doesn’t want to fuck things up between them by interpreting his voice wrong. 

More than she probably already has, anyway.

Alex sits back in her chair as the call connects, fighting the ridiculous urge to brush her hair or check her makeup. It’s just Strand. And her web camera is about ten years old--it’s reliable, but it’s not like it’s in high definition or anything. 

Besides, she tells herself, it’s not as if Strand will even care what she looks like. They’re having a business conversation, not a long-distance date.

The call connects and the image of Strand fills her screen. He’s sitting in the high-backed executive chair at his desk in his office. Tall and broad-shouldered, he has to fiddle with the camera for a moment, adjusting it until it shows his face.

“Hey,” she says, too loud, full of forced cheer.

If he notices, he doesn’t give any indication. His expression is free from emotion, his cat eyes cool and clear, like the surface of a lake. “Hello, Alex. I trust I find you well?”

“Yeah, you know, same old, same old. How are you?”

“I am well. You had something you wished to discuss with me?”

Alex had counted on a little more small talk. She should have known Strand would want to get straight to the point.

“We’re, uh, good, right?”

Strand’s expression softens a little. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Because, well, after you hear this, we may not be good anymore.” Alex’s face scrunches, already preparing for him to chew her out.

“What happened?”

“It’s more like ‘what’s happening.’” Alex takes a second to steel herself and then explains, all in a rush. “Nic and I have sort of been looking into Coralee.”

Strand blinks in surprise, but other than that, he still doesn’t betray any emotion. Damn witchers. 

“What?” he asks.

Alex takes a breath, forces herself to speak like a rational adult, not like a guilty kid. “We hired a private investigator. To see if we could find her. If she’s out there, she has to have answers, right? She was the one who sent me the bracelet with it and our friend, the wraith. She lured you here, to Seattle. She has to have had a reason, right?”

“Did you find her?” His voice is quiet, uncertain. It makes something hideous crawl through her, something that feels too much like jealousy for Alex’s peace of mind.

“We have some leads. But it would help if we knew what she looked like. Do you have a photograph of her?”

“Photographs had yet to be invented the last time I saw her, I’m afraid.”

“Oh.” Alex can’t keep the disappointment out of her voice. “Could you--it’s been a long time. Do you remember--”

“What she looks like?”

“Yeah. It’s okay. If you don’t want to talk about it. I wouldn’t blame you. Here I made a big deal about you keeping secrets and then I--what’s so funny?”

The witcher is fighting a losing battle with the smile that wants to curl his lips. “I knew you were looking into Coralee.”

“You did?”

“I assumed you would. Ruby confirmed it for me.”

Alex’s brows furrow. “How did _she_ know?”

The smile wins out. “She listens to your podcast, Alex.”

Alex thumps her head down against the desk, her cheeks burning. She’s an idiot. She’s been updating her listeners on her progress from day one. She groans. Then, slightly offended, she looks back up. “Wait, _you_ don’t listen to the podcast? It’s about _you_.”

“Like most people, I don’t enjoy the sound of my own voice. Ruby is sure to give me detailed updates, however.”

“Oh, great,” Alex says. She can only imagine the commentary with which the other woman delivered those updates.

“Despite how she may show it, I believe Ruby actually likes you.”

“ _Now_ you’re lying to me.”

Strand laughs. It’s the first time she’s heard it in a long while, that quiet breath of laughter. She’s missed the sound of it. “I am not.”

“Well,” Alex says, regretfully returning to the subject at hand, “I’m glad you aren’t mad. We’re going to keep searching for her, if that’s okay?”

“You don’t need my permission,” he says. “I know you have a duty to your listeners, to your story. I won’t impede your investigation.”

“And you’re certain you don’t have anything that could help?”

He closes his eyes, as if searching for an answer deep within himself. “She had long, brown hair. Down to her waist. Her eyes were hazel, almond-shaped. Her skin was a warm bronze. She was a healer, mostly. Caring. Gentle.”

“You loved her.” Alex doesn’t need to frame it as a question.

“I did.”

“Can I--can I ask what happened? Do you have any idea why she would disappear like she did?”

Strand is quiet for a long time. “Things were different, back then. Sorceresses often came from wealthy families. They had hands idle enough to study--peasant women were too busy and too poor to learn to read, let alone work magic. But noble families were also disinclined to educate eligible daughters. Thus, sorceresses tended to be women with poor prospects for marriage. Often found to be too ugly or disfigured to marry off to another family of noble blood.

“These women were saved by the magic within them. Magic can be dangerous. Without direction, it can drive a person mad. But instead of becoming old maids, spinsters shunned by the family for leeching off their parent’s wealth, magic gave them a way out. It offered them power. Power to be independant, yes. And the power to change their appearance.

“I mean no judgement when I say this. Enchantresses--free from the bounds of propriety, free from the expectations of being bound to one man to support them, free to enjoy extended youth and newfound beauty--enchantresses were rarely faithful.”

He pauses, frowning. Alex sees the remnants of an old wound in his strange eyes.

“Coralee wasn’t interested in monogamy?” Alex asks, as gently as she can. 

“She was involved with a sorcerer. Possibly others, but she always came back to the sorcerer. He went by the name Warren--I don’t know if that was his real name or something he took when he graduated from the Academy. Warren was involved with a group of magic-users who worshiped an old chthonic goddess. The more Coralee told me, the more it began to sound like a cult. I warned Coralee away. She told me she could handle herself and accused me of being jealous. We fought--not for the first time.

“I woke up to an empty bed. It was not yet dawn. I followed her scent, the perfume she wore--sandalwood and violets--into the woods. Where I found the remains of a portal. I found no signs of a struggle. She left of her own free will. But still--I searched for her. For years. But after no word, no sightings, I mourned her for dead.”

“Until you caught the scent of her perfume at the station?” Alex asks.

“Yes.”

Alex breathes out. “That...really sucks.”

“Thank you,” he says, “for saying so. But it is as it is.”

Alex wants to reach through the screen and shake him. She’s angry, not at him, but for him.

Is it because he’s a witcher that he can sit there and so calmly recount the disappearance of the woman he loved? Or has it simply been so long the wound has scarred over?

“What will you do if we find her?” she asks.

“If she allows herself to be found...nothing,” he says.

Brows raised in surprise, Alex asks, “Nothing?”

“I’m very old, but I’m not so Neandertal as to believe once I’ve been with a woman, I now lay some sort of claim to her. I loved her. I did. But she left, Alex. Her hint could not have been made much clearer.”

Alex shakes her head. “You don’t even want to ask her why?”

“Does it matter?” he asks. “Would my life really change if she were to tell me she left me for Warren? Or because I was too protective of her? Or she simply got bored of me?”

“I...suppose not.”

“Thank you,” he says.

“What for?”

“For respecting my decision, even though you clearly do not agree with it. And for listening. I have never spoken to anyone about Coralee.”

Alex blinks, surprised. “No one? Just me?”

He smiles. “Just you.”

“Well, it’s not as if I didn’t force you. But--I’m honored. Thank you for telling me.”

A knock comes at Alex’s door. A sandy-headed intern pokes his head into her office. He mouths something and points at his watch. Alex nods at him, acknowledging his reminder.

“You must go?” Strand asks. 

Alex must be imagining the disappointment in his voice. “Yeah, I’ve got a meeting with Terry and Paul. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yes,” he says. “I have a case to finalize--a white tape case--but I shall be in Seattle in the next few days.”

“Great,” Alex says. “I’ll see you then.”

They each say their goodbyes.

Alex tries to concentrate on the meeting, but she finds herself lost in thought. About Coralee. About Strand.

Nic notices her inattention. He elbows her in the ribs and Alex throws him an apologetic look. But no matter how hard she tries to listen, she leaves the meeting with a notebook page blank of notes and no idea what was even said.


	20. Dreams III

That night, Alex drags herself through her apartment. She doesn’t bother with dinner. She kicks her flats across her bedroom. She steps out of her skirt. She struggles with her top, first with the zipper and then with the energy needed to pull it over her head. She falls into bed, faceplanting straight into the pillows.

She falls asleep, for once, without any difficulty.

 

She’s dreaming.

She’s aware enough to recognize it, this time. Her surroundings, what appear to be a sunny afternoon at a crowded cafe, are hazy. Her thoughts lucid.

Across from her, at the table, sits a woman. She has long, brown hair, which hangs loose to her waist. She has almond-shaped hazel eyes. Eyes which betray an age much older than her appearance makes her out to be. Her skin is a warm bronze, free from freckles or blemish.

Alex also notices what Strand hadn’t described to her. Coralee is curvy, full figured. The white dress she wears hugs her in all the right places. Her legs, crossed under the table, are long and slender.

She looks like a movie star.

Alex looks down to see herself wearing jeans and an over-large PNWS T-shirt. Her sneakers are scuffed, the bottoms caked with mud.

She flushes.

Coralee smiles at her. 

Can she see Alex’s thoughts? Can she tell how inadequate Alex feels sitting next to her?

Alex sits up straight. Let Coralee read her mind-- _if_ that’s something the sorceress can do. “Coralee, right?”

“Hello, Alex. I heard you’ve been looking for me.”

“How?”

“It’s not as if you’ve kept it much of a secret.” Coralee takes a sip from a delicate, floral teacup. “Your podcast is very engaging, by the way.”

“I’m not going to stop looking for you, if that’s what you’re here for,” Alex says.

“I know. I admire your doggedness, actually.” She takes another sip from her teacup, completely at ease. “I’ve looked into you, you know. Only fair, of course. Turns out, you’re quite the reporter. Awards for this or that story. You could be working in the big leagues, gone on to do national news, yet you remain in your regional little studio. Why is that?”

“I happen to _like_ my regional little studio,” Alex says, hackles rising at the insinuation there might be something lacking with Pacific Northwest Stories. “And I didn’t get into journalism for the fame. I’m not interested in that.”

“Oh?” Coralee asks. “What _did_ you get into it for?”

“The truth.”

“I see,” Coralee says. She smiles.

“Why are you here, if not to warn me off? Which I’m getting sick of, by the way.”

Coralee purses her lips. After drinking several times from her tea, her lipstick is not even the littlest bit smudged. “I never said I wasn’t here to warn you. Not away, of course--I know better than to stand between another woman and her desires.”

Alex bristles. Coralee’s words imply something much more, something Alex isn’t yet ready to admit to herself. “Does it have anything to do with the words ‘darkness approaches, she will return?’ With the Order of the Cenophaes?”

“For one.”

“Can you tell me what it means?”

“Unfortunately, no. There are forces at work here, Alex. Forces which you won’t understand, not even with all the investigative prowess you can throw at them. I simply came to tell you to be careful. And…” Coralee’s eyes are filled with something like regret. “Tell Ryszard I’m sorry, but it was for the best.”

“Ryszard?” 

“I believe you call him Richard.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” Alex asks.

“I lost that privilege a long time ago.” Coralee smiles sadly. “Please, Alex.”

“Okay, fine.”

“Thank you. Now, I must go. Sleep, dreamer. Deep and undisturbed.”

Alex reaches across the table, her mouth opened to tell Coralee to wait, to ask her the myriad of questions Alex has for her, but the dream dissolves into nothing.

 

Alex wakes to the sound of gentle rain falling outside her bedroom window. The alarm on her nightstand is set to sound in two minutes. For the first time in Alex’s recollection, she’s slept for more than eight hours straight.


	21. Tapes VI

“So,” Alex says, pressing her phone to her ear. She kicks her legs up onto her desk and pops the take-out container open with her free hand. “How’s the case going?”

“I would consider it solved.”

Alex digs through her lo mien for a piece of chicken. “Can you tell me about it?”

“I can,” Strand says, “but the details are rather gruesome.”

“Reporter, remember? I think I can handle it.”

“Still, you may wish to put down your lunch.”

Alex blushes. She puts the container on her desk. “Sorry. Didn’t think you could hear that over the phone.”

“It’s no matter.” He pauses. “Are you aware of the name Simon Reese?”

It sounds familiar, but Alex can’t remember why. “I can’t place it, no.”

“Ten years ago, a small boy named Simon Reese butchered both of his parents in his sleep.”

“That story was all over the news for weeks. He was a selective mute, right? They couldn’t get anything out of him, just that he claimed it was somehow him, but it wasn’t him.”

“That’s right,” Strand says. “Details of the case made it unclear who could have murdered Reece’s parents. The house showed no signs of being broken into, but it would have been impossible for an eight year old to subdue two grown adults. The victims had no defensive wounds, despite having been stabbed multiple times.”

“I don’t see where you come in.”

“Simon Reese has been drawing sigils on his walls. Or so the heads of the psychiatric hospital he currently resides in have claimed.”

“Sorry,” Alex says, “what are sigils?”

“A type of written magic, composed of symbols and runes.”

“Is Simon Reece some kind of magic-user?”

“No.” Alex can hear the humor in his voice. “I could find no trace of magic on him. The ‘sigils’ weren’t spell-work at all. Doodles mostly. Admittedly, doodles which to the untrained and paranoid eye might look like the work of a sorcerer. But the boy is simply bored. He’s acting out, scaring the other patients.”

“And, so, case closed?”

“Case closed,” Strand agrees.

“Except, we still don’t know what happened to his parents.”

“It’s unlikely we ever will. It’s possible it was someone the Reece family knew. Someone they trusted. Simon Reece could have let them out and locked the door behind the murderer at their request. Or they could have had a spare key. But these are details for the police to figure out, not a witcher.”

“Well, not that this wasn’t fascinating,” Alex says, “because it _is_ , I didn’t actually call you just to ask about your case.”

“Did you learn something in your investigation?”

“Sort of. I had another dream.”

“About the Order of the Cenophaes?”

Alex picks up her lo mien. She chews for a moment, giving herself time to put her thoughts in order. She grimaces a little upon finding the noodles room temperature. “Coralee, actually.”

“Coralee?”

Is it just her, or does his voice sound strained?

“She’s gorgeous, by the way. I can see why she caught your attention.”

Is it just her, or does her own voice sound bitter, ugly?

“What happened in your dream, Alex?”

Alex sighs. “We were at some sort of cafe, having tea. We had a conversation.”

“What did she say?” Strand asks. His voice is definitely laden with some kind of emotion. Alex can’t tell what it could be. It makes her wish she’d waited to have this conversation, to have it face to face.

“She told me to be careful. She said there are forces at work I wouldn’t be able to understand. Forces, despite your claim not to be keeping secrets, I have a feeling you know more about than you’re letting on.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” Strand says. His voice has gone cold. Colder than Alex has ever heard it.

“Don’t I?” Alex asks, her words heavy with challenge. “You asked me to help you investigate the reappearance of your Black Tapes monsters. So why are you keeping information away from me? To protect me? For my own good? Why get me involved in the first place?”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have.”

“Are you serious?” Alex asks, unable to keep the indignation out of her voice. “Perhaps you shouldn’t, but I’m involved now. I’m not going to back down just because you aren’t happy with the _level_ of my involvement. That’s not how this works.”

Silence from the other line. Alex can’t even hear him breathing.

“Strand?” 

“Yes?”

“Are you going to tell me how all of this is connected? The Black Tapes, Coralee, the Order of the Cenophaes? What do you know that you aren’t telling me?”

“Goodbye, Alex.”

The line goes dead.

Alex calls Strand’s number, first his cell phone, then, when that yields nothing, she dials his number at the office.

The phone rings and rings and then Strand’s calm, rumbling voice says, “You’ve reached Dr. Richard Strand. Please, leave a message.”

Alex hangs up without leaving anything. She knows she’ll regret her words later if she does.

Instead, Alex pulls up the SMS app on her phone. She jabs her fingers at the touch screen as she types. 

**Alex:** If it counts for anything, she said she was sorry. She said it was for the best. 

Alex receives no answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if the last chapters were a bit short. After this, things should start to get exciting. :O


	22. Tapes VII

Alex tries and tries to get in contact with Strand over the next few weeks. He refuses her calls. Her emails go unanswered. Any attempts to contact him through Ruby or his receptionist--even his publicist--are all blocked.

Alex’s dreams continue to haunt her. She dreams of a deer-looking creature moving slowly through the forest. It walks on two legs, it’s knees bent the wrong way. She dreams of a two year old pointing and giggling at a tall, skull faced monster, right before her horrified mother scoops her up and runs from the house. She dreams of a fiery-eyed _something_ , whispering hateful words into the ear of a young woman, until the woman slips an orange extension cord around her neck and hangs herself from the ceiling fan in her apartment. 

She even dreams of the witcher. 

She dreams of him as he used to be, centuries ago. She dreams of Ryszard, his hair long, dressed in leather and armor, dual swords strapped to his back. She dreams of him covered in blood and viscera, chest heaving as he brings down the last of a pack of rabid dogs. She dreams of him leading a black stallion down a muddy road, soaked through as the rain comes down in a torrent. She even wakes one morning shame-faced and throbbing, having dreamt of him making love with a breathless and beautiful Coralee.

During the day, she finds it difficult not to be angry with him. How could he abandon the story? How could he abandon _her_? Only for visions of his past life to plague her as she sleeps? How _dare_ he invade her thoughts like that, after he so unceremoniously hung up on her, after he disappeared?

And as much as she hates to admit it, she’s angry at Strand because she finds herself struggling with the investigation without him. She isn’t an expert on monsters and there isn’t enough reference material available for her to learn. Her listeners call into the studio with claims of monster activity--some are blatant trolls, looking for attention. They can hardly get through their calls without bursting into laughter. Other callers, Alex has an easier time believing. But are they suffering from apophenia? Or do they truly have evidence of monster activity?

Alex forwards a majority of the callers to Ruby, to sift through for Strand. Just in case.

Still, he doesn’t call her back. Not even to thank her for sending business his way.

Finally, however, she has a break in the case. Alex had called the office of a celebrity sorcerer when she’d first started the podcast, one who often makes appearances on national news, whenever they need a magic-user to explain unexplained phenomena. He does book tours and seminars. He’s even done work on commercials, smiling big and bright while he holds up this or that object. It had been a shot in the dark to get him onto the podcast, but Alex made the call anyway. She had wanted to get another opinion on magic, from an expert other than the witcher. 

Tannis Braun is a busy man with a household name. So when Alex receives a call from him--personally--to set up the interview she’d asked for, Alex can’t help but be surprised. 

And a little bit relieved.

She sits down across from him in one of the recording studios at the station, her recorder on the table between them.

Tannis Braun smiles at her. He has a boyish face with a charming smile. His teeth are unnaturally white. 

“Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with me,” Alex says.

Braun waves her comment away. “It’s no trouble. I recently started listening to your podcast. When I heard my name, I simply _had_ to find out why your call wasn’t forwarded on to me. My assistant sends his apologies, by the way. He had no idea what a podcast even was.”

Alex smiles. It’s easy to smile around Braun. “I get that a lot.”

“It seems you’ve hit a bit of a snag in the last few weeks, with Ryszard leaving. Has he contacted you since the last episode aired?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Alex says. “I was hoping you could answer some questions, maybe get us moving on the right track?”

“I shall endeavor to do my best, Ms. Reagan.”

“Alex, please,” Alex says.

Braun bows his head. “Alex.”

Alex looks at her notepad, at the questions she managed to scrawl there in preparation for Braun’s visit. She taps the paper with the cap end of her pen and returns her gaze to Braun. “Is it okay if we jump right in?”

“Certainly. What do you have for me?”

“What do you know about the Order of the Cenophaes?”

If he’s surprised at the question, Braun doesn’t show it. He smiles his showman smile. “Now, why would you assume I’d know about a thing like that?”

“Well,” Alex says, “you’re a sorcerer. You’ve lived almost as long as Dr. Strand has. History may not know much of the Order, but...you must know something.”

He spreads his hands out in front of him in surrender. “You’re right. I do.”

“And let me guess? It’s too dangerous for you to tell me what you know about them?”

“I am not Ryszard. If you are aware of the danger, yet you wish to continue, I will not try to dissuade you. Something is coming, Ms. Reagan. And you may be instrumental in stopping it.”

“Stopping what? _What_ is coming?”

“The Order of the Cenophaes is a secret society of sorcerers,” Braun says. “Sorcerers older than I. Older than Ryszard. They worship an old goddess, a goddess of creation and destruction. They have worked tirelessly through the ages, searching for a way to bring her up from the depths of the sea.”

“Wait,” Alex says. “Dr. Strand mentioned some kind of cult Coralee was involved with. Something about a chthonic goddess. Was Warren part of the Order of the Cenophaes?”

“Ah,” Braun says. “Warren. No, Warren was never part of the Order. But both sects are essentially two sides of the same coin. Both worship the goddess Tiamat. Both essentially want to restore Tiamat to power, to have her destroy the world, but they want to destroy it on _their_ terms.”

“But, why? What terms?”

Braun shrugs. “They say the Order of the Cenophaes revere the monsters of old. They wish to wipe out the humans infesting the earth, to restore the world to how it was before we became the dominant race.”

“And the other cult?”

“They believe they are the chosen few made to rule the new world after Tiamat’s return. They believe she will wipe the slate clean, leaving only those worthy, before she returns to her watery rest.”

“Richard--” Alex begins. She shakes her head, angry with herself for referring to the witcher so casually in front of Braun. “Dr. Strand, I mean. He knew all of this?”

“Witchers and sorcerers don’t usually run in the same circles. It’s possible he knows very little. I doubt he is completely ignorant, however. He wouldn’t have pushed you away as he did if he weren’t, at least, cognizant of the lengths these cults will go to in order to bring about the apocalypse.”

“What lengths are those?” Alex asks.

“I’ve told you all I can,” Braun says, pushing himself up from the table. He looks at her with serious brown eyes, eyes which have lost their sparkle of mirth. “Take care, Alex. The Order of the Cenophaes must know you’ve been asking about them. They’ve killed people for less.”

“How am I supposed to stop it?” Alex asks, before he can leave. “There has to be something I can do.”

“You know, I am not surprised Ryszard left,” Braun says, instead of answering her question. “I am only surprised it took him so long to leave after learning Coralee is still alive.”

“What?” Alex asks, trying to wrap her head around the abrupt change of subject.

“He was always obsessed with her. He fancied himself in love.” Braun laughs. “Can you imagine it? A witcher in love?”

Despite still being upset at the witcher, Alex’s hackles rise. “He did love her.”

Braun clicks his tongue against his teeth, shaking his head as if disappointed with her. “Witchers are incapable of love. They burn the emotions out of them. What they feel--what they think they feel--it’s all cellular memory. But it’s not real.”

Alex’s hands ball into fists. “I don’t believe you.”

“It is the truth, Ms. Reagan. Whether you believe me or not. I will leave you with one last warning, however. Do as you must with your investigation, but do not let yourself get caught up in the novelty of the witcher. He is a genetically mutated warrior, a machine made to kill--that is all. You’ll only continue to get yourself hurt if you allow yourself to believe otherwise.”

He leaves, shutting the door behind himself. 

Alex stands there, mixed emotions swirling through her.

Could what Braun said be true? 

Could what Alex has interpreted in Strand as emotion be nothing but ‘cellular memory?’

Could she really be caught in between two societies bent on the destruction of the entire world?

If darkness approaches, if Tiamat is the ‘she’ the white-eyed woman in her dreams referred to, what--if anything--is Alex supposed to do to stop it? To stop the goddess from returning?

She leaves the recording studio with more questions than she began with. Anxiety churns in her gut.

She eyes her cell phone, lying on her desk. She could call Strand. Text him, maybe. She could tell him everything she’s learned from Braun. Maybe he'll respond with the fate of the world at stake.

She puts it in the drawer, out of sight. She sits down heavily in her chair. For a long time, she sits there, her head in between her hands, thoughts racing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a difficult time with this chapter. A lot of plot that needed to come out. Hopefully, everything makes sense. Or will make sense in the coming chapters.
> 
> Anyway, thanks so much for reading. And a huge thank you to everyone who has taken the time to give kudos or comment on this fic. Ya'll are the greatest.


	23. Dreams IV

That night, Alex dreams.

She’s running through a forest. Sweat breaks out upon her brow. Her legs, unused to anything more than a brisk walk, feel like jelly underneath her. Her knees are seconds away from collapsing underneath her. Her lungs burn.

She’s been running for a long time. Instinctively, she knows she can’t stop. Not because she is being chased. No, because she is chasing something. A black cat. It’s eyes, she knows without it turning around, are a bright, crystalline blue.

The cat chases something. Something just before it. It moves fast through the trees, so fast Alex can only see a blur of movement. The cat races after the blur, but no matter how hard his powerful legs kick against the dirt and loam of the forest floor, it never gets any closer.

Alex coughs and wheezes as they run, she and the cat, but she can’t stop. If she does, she’ll lose the cat in the darkness of the forest.

A low fog rolls in. It hits them like a tidal wave. Alex expects it to crash over them. To knock them back like a physical force. She braces for impact, but the cat simply jumps into it and continues running. Alex follows, unable to do anything else.

The fog brings with it monsters. Alex can’t see them, but she can hear them. Growls and snarls and howls. The cat pays them no heed. He puts on a burst of speed, leaving Alex behind as her stamina starts to wane. She lags behind, half running, half jogging, breathing hard. A sharp pain lances her side and she clutches at it.

She can’t go on. She staggers, tripping over a tree root and nearly tumbles to the ground. She stops. She bends over, hands on her knees, and pulls in huge lungfuls of air.

Alex looks up, trying to see the cat, but he’s gone.

A shadow, deeper and darker than the rest, looms behind her. It grows taller, more slender as it approaches.

Alex runs. In her fright, she forgets about her fatigue. All she knows is the need to find the cat, to warn him, protect him from the oncoming danger.

Somehow, without knowing the direction the cat and its quarry have gone, Alex manages to catch up. The shadow follows just behind her.

“Richard,” she cries. Because the cat _is_ Strand. “Richard, watch out!”

The cat skids to a stop. It turns, stance wide, eyes narrowed at the shadow. It hisses, hackles raised. 

The shadow extends several tentacles, all reaching for the cat. The cat swats at them, but there are too many, coming from all directions. A shadow tentacle swipes at the cat, knocking it back into a tree. The snap of little ribs makes Alex’s stomach roil. She tries to move, to put herself between the cat and the shadow, but her legs refuse to move.

“Richard!” she screams as she screams herself awake.

Her sheets are tangled around her legs, damp with sweat. Alex heaves in lungfuls of air, feeling almost as if she really has run for miles and miles. 

Alex’s phone rings. Her heart leaps into her throat as the device vibrates against her bedside table. She grabs at it, recognizes the number as Ruby’s.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other end of the line is unfamiliar, tight with barely restrained anger. “What the hell did you do?”

Alex blinks, still not quite awake. “Who is this?”

A pause. “Charlie. Charlie Strand.”

“Charlie?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Charlie says. “I know he told you about me. It was on your little podcast.”

Alex tamps down on her immediate response. She takes a deep breath, tries to remain rational. Something is wrong with Strand and she’ll never figure it out if she argues with Strand’s daughter over the insinuation her podcast is in any way _little_. “Wait, wait, wait, Charlie. I’m not playing anything. I really have no idea what’s going on.”

“No?” Charlie barks a laugh, clearly unwilling to believe her. “He was _fine_ until you came along. _You_ did this. So _you_ can get on the next fucking flight and fix it. Or I will make absolutely sure you _never_ work in radio again.”

The line goes dead.

“What the fuck?” Alex says. It’s the only thing she can think of to say.

She dials Strand. But again, all she receives is Strand’s voice saying, “You’ve reached Dr. Richard Strand. Please, leave a message.”

“What the fuck?” she says again. It only makes her feel marginally better.

 

Ruby glares at her as Alex approaches. Her hair is a soft lavender, pulled into a messy ponytail. Her lips are mauve, with gold glitter that shines in the fluorescent lights. She’s wearing a black crop top, jeans, and spiked combat boots. She crosses her arms over her chest. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the lost little bird.”

“Ruby, where is he?” Alex has spent the last few hours sitting in a plane, her imagination jumping from one conclusion to the next. She keeps seeing the cat from her dreams, keeps hearing the snap of his delicate bones against the tree. She’s tired and nauseous and furious that no one will tell her what’s going on. “What happened?”

Ruby’s eyes soften. Her severe stance wavers, just a bit. “You really don’t know?”

“You, of all people, know how hard I’ve been trying to reach Dr. Strand. I haven’t heard from him in _weeks_. How am I supposed to know what’s going on if no one will tell me?”

Ruby takes Alex’s elbow and leads her down the hall, away from Strand’s sensitive hearing. She doesn’t stop until they’re on the elevator, floors away from Strand’s office. “Dr. Strand isn’t doing so hot.”

“What does that mean, Ruby? _Please_ , I need to know.”

“He stopped eating, stopped sleeping. As far as I know, he’s been living out of his office.” Ruby bites her lip. “And I think...he’s been using. Not drugs, but his witcher potions. He’s twitchy, moves too fast. I dropped my water bottle and I swear he was there in an instant. He swooped in and caught it before it could hit the ground.”

Alex’s eyes widen.

“I’ve never seen him like this,” Ruby continues. “Neither has Charlie. Seriously, you have no idea why? It isn’t because you two broke up?”

“What?”

Ruby’s glare returns. “I’m not stupid. I saw the way you look at each other. Did you break it off with him or not?”

“ _No_ ,” Alex says. She shakes her head. “We aren’t--we weren’t--it wasn’t like that.”

Ruby stares at her, challenge in her eyes. But she must see something on Alex’s face because her posture relaxes. “Oh my God, you weren’t--? You never--?”

“No,” Alex says, again. “And _I_ wasn’t the one to break anything off. _He_ left _me_ , right in the middle of the investigation.”

“Fuck,” Ruby says. “I’m sorry, Alex. We were just so worried. And I mentioned to Charlie that you must have broken up with him and _that’s_ why he’s all messed up and she kind of freaked. I’m _so_ sorry.”

“Can I see him?” Alex asks. “I don’t--I don’t know if there’s anything I can do. But I want to help.”

“Charlie’s been trying to convince him to go home and get some rest for days now. She was due back at school a week ago, but she told the administration she had a family emergency. She’ll be pissed--more than she already is--if he listens to you, but not her.”

They make their way back to Strand’s office. Alex, trying to break some of the tension still lingering between her and Ruby, asks about Charlie.

Ruby grins. “She teaches advanced computer science to the nerds at our old school. She stays at the school during the year, so I really only get to see her on breaks.” Ruby winces, guilt flashing through her eyes. “As much as I hate to see Dr. Strand like this, I’m happy I get to see her, even if it’s just a little bit longer.”

Alex smiles. It’s obvious Ruby adores her girlfriend. “I’m happy you get to see her, too.”

“Even though she was kind of a bitch to you?”

Charlie had been upset. Understandably so. She’d lashed out, believing Alex to be the cause of the problem.

“Yeah,” Alex says. “Even then.”

Ruby smiles. “I can see why he likes you.”

Alex’s cheeks heat up.

Ruby laughs, but her expression quickly sobers as they reach the door to Strand’s office. A woman, about the same age as Ruby, steps out of Strand’s office, closing the door behind her. Her green eyes are red from crying, her round face splotchy from her tears.

She and Ruby are a study in opposites. Where Ruby’s skin is tan, Charlie’s is pale, like her adoptive father. Her hair is an ashen blonde. She wears a floral sundress and strappy sandals. Her makeup is understated, natural.

“Alex?” Charlie asks, her tone accusatory. “Alex Reagan?”

Alex gives a little wave, trying not to let the other woman succeed in intimidating her. Charlie’s entire manner reminds Alex of Ms. Reynolds, her high school economics teacher.

Alex had not done so well in high school economics.

Ruby, seeing Alex’s expression, goes to Charlie. She leads her girlfriend away, down the hall to the elevator, much as she’d done to Alex. Before they turn the corner, out of sight, Ruby shoots Alex an encouraging look over her shoulder. Then, what that doesn’t prove enough, she gestures for Alex to enter Strand’s office.

Alex stares at the door for several minutes, before going in.


	24. Questions VIII

Not even in Alex’s dreams has she seen the witcher look so disheveled. She almost doesn’t recognize him.

He looks up from his desk, where his fingers are flying over the keyboard of his laptop. He’s grown a beard in the last few weeks, but it doesn’t hide the gauntness of his face. His eyes are sunken into his skull, pupils contracted in the dim light of the office until the cool blue of his irises is almost nonexistent. His hair, normally pushed back with a bit of product, hangs over his forehead. He’s not wearing his customary suit, but instead a pair of jeans, a thin T-shirt, and a plaid flannel. All of which hang on him as if he hasn’t eaten in months.

He stares at her, cocking his head at her in something like confusion. “Alex?”

“Hi.”

He stands, staggering a little. He steadies himself with a hand on the desk. “What--what are you doing here?”

“Charlie called me,” Alex says.

“Charlie,” he says. He rakes a trembling hand through his hair. “She should be back at school.”

“She’s worried. Ruby’s worried, too. How long has it been since you’ve had something to eat? Since you’ve gotten any sleep?”

He shakes his head, slowly. His movements remind Alex of a drunk person trying desperately not to show how drunk they are. “It doesn’t matter. I have to--”

His knees buckle. Alex rushes to him, even as he leans heavily on the desk to keep himself upright.

“Sit down,” Alex says. 

He lets her push him down into his high backed executive chair. He looks at her hand on his chest like he can’t believe she’s solid. He touches it, experimentally, the tips of his fingers brushing the back of her hand. 

Alex’s skin tingles at the contact. She doesn’t pull away, not even when he begins to trace the contours of her hand.

“Strand?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Richard?”

Still he doesn’t acknowledge he’s even heard her speak.

“Ryszard?”

He shudders. “Yes?”

“Why don’t we get you home?”

He backs away, rolling his computer chair back to his laptop. “No. I have to--to work. I have to--”

Alex puts her hands on her hips. “You’re so determined to find her you don’t see the danger that’s coming. At this rate, witcher, you’re not going to be ready for it.”

Strand’s hands fall from the keyboard. “What?”

“I dreamt you were in the forest, chasing something, something always out of your reach. You were so busy racing after it, you didn’t notice the shadow behind you. It knocked you into a tree, broke your bones. It would have killed you, but I woke before it could reach you.”

He sways as he listens to her. He bends down, to where his black witcher case lies carelessly at his feet. He kicks the mechanism to open it. Several of the bottles are missing. He plucks one from it’s velvet resting place, hands shaking. He tries to uncork it, but his hands won’t cooperate.

Alex takes the bottle from him and sets it down on the desk.

“Please,” he says, expression desperate. “I’ll crash. I can’t afford to crash.”

“You can’t afford to keep piggy-backing witcher elixirs, either. You said this stuff is toxic, didn’t you? Not just to humans, but to witcher’s too.”

“I can--I can handle it.”

He tries to reach for the bottle, but his reflexes aren’t as fast as he expects them to be. The previous elixir must be wearing off. Alex picks it up and holds it out of his reach.

“Do you have any idea who is after you?” Alex asks. “The Cult of Tiamat or the Order of the Cenophaes? Someone else entirely?”

Strand frowns. His eyes never leave the bottle in her hand. “How do you know about Warren’s cult?”

“After you left, I had a talk with a sorcerer named Tannis Braun.”

Strand’s frown turns into a scowl, made hideous by the scar twisting his lips. “Braun.”

“He likes you just as much as you like him,” Alex says, “believe me.”

Strand opens his mouth to say something, but decides better of it. He slumps back in his chair, closes his eyes, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“Who could be after me. I’m a witcher. I’m a threat. It could be one or the other. It could be both.”

“You aren’t worried?” Alex asks. She thinks of the small cat, no match for the shadow from her dreams.

“No witcher has ever died peacefully in their bed,” he says. “Let them come.”

Alex crosses her arms over her chest, frowning. “And what about Charlie? Ruby? You should be thinking of how to protect them, even if you aren’t interested in protecting yourself.”

“I would give my life before allowing anything to happen to them.”

“Really? And how will killing yourself on witcher drugs keep them safe? Just to find one sorceress? A sorceress who left you centuries ago? Who prefered for you to think her dead for all these years?” Alex sighs. The witcher drugs make it difficult to keep his emotions hidden. He flinches at Alex’s words, as if she had slapped him instead of simply speaking. “They need you. _I_ need you. I’m a reporter--I wasn’t trained to fight monsters like you were. I can’t stop this freaking apocalypse all on my own.”

When he doesn’t answer, Alex says, “I’ll pay you if I have to, witcher. If I have to go through a contract, to fulfil your Witcher Code, or whatever, I’ll do it.”

“No, Alex--I--” He swallows, looking suddenly ill. “No contract. Just-- _please_. I’m going to lose consciousness. I’ll be no help to anyone if I’m unconscious.”

“Promise me,” Alex says, uncorking the bottle. “Promise me this is the last one. You’ll go home. Rest. Get something to eat.”

“I promise.”

When his hand proves to be too unsteady, Alex guides the bottle to his mouth and helps him to drink it. He turns his head away after consuming only half the contents.

“Only enough to give me the strength to return home,” he explains. 

Alex corks the bottle. She puts it in its slot in his witcher case and closes it. 

Out of sight, out of mind.

Minutes later, when the elixir begins to take effect, Strand still wavers on his feet. His pupils are somehow wider than before, his eyes unable to settle on any one thing. He blinks, long and slow, as if trying to focus.

“Are you okay?” Alex asks.

He smiles, small and weak. “I...may need your help.”

Alex moves closer to him, ready to steady him should he need it.

Charlie sits in Ruby’s chair at her desk. Ruby sits on top of the desk, facing her. Their foreheads are pressed together, as they exchange quiet words between them, but they part as soon as they hear the door to Strand’s office open.

Charlie springs out of the chair. She throws her arms around Strand. “Dad!”

He staggers a little under the force of the embrace, but he wraps his arms around her. He smoothes her ashen hair down, cups the back of her head. “Charlie.”

Charlie tries to burrow closer. “I was so fucking worried.”

Strand laughs. “Do you speak to your students with that mouth?”

Charlie’s laugh is full of relief. “Who do you think I learned it from?”

Ruby hops down from the desk. She puts her arms around both Charlie and Strand. “Glad you decided to get your act together, boss.”

Alex smiles, happy to witness something so pure, so loving. 

Ruby looks up from the embrace. “C’mon, Alex.”

Alex startles, not having expected an invitation. “I don’t want to intrude.”

Ruby elbows Charlie. Charlie rolls her eyes at her girlfriend, but says, “You might as well. You’re part of this ragtag group of misfits, whether you like it or not.”

Strand smiles at Charlie, then at Alex. He looks exhausted, running on nearly empty. But, for once, truly happy.

Alex joins in the group hug, putting her arms around Strand and Charlie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to do a little more with this chapter to progress the actual plot, but this seemed a good enough place to stop. :)


	25. Questions IX

Ruby and Charlie help Alex get Strand into his car. Alex slips into the driver’s seat and adjusts it while Charlie fusses over her father. The ashen haired woman buckles him in, even as the witcher complains of not being an invalid. 

“You seriously look like you’re about to keel over,” Charlie says. She turns the full force of her green-eyed glare onto her father and he sits back in his seat, hands up in surrender. 

Charlie shuts the door and motions for Strand to lower his window. It buzzes downward and Charlie leans in.

“Get some rest, Dad,” she says. She kisses Strand on his cheek, grimacing at the feel of his beard. “And it honestly wouldn’t hurt you to shave.”

Ruby grins and puts her arm around Charlie’s waist, pulling her away from the car. “Pretty sure they’ve got this, babe.”

“I _know_ ,” Charlie says. “It’s just--” She makes an abortive motion to signal how helpless she must feel. She turns back to her father. “Call me, okay? As _soon_ as you’re feeling better.”

“I will.”

The two women wave at the car until Alex pulls out of the parking lot.

As soon as Alex turns onto the road, out of sight of Charlie and Ruby, Strand collapses back against the seat, looking for all the world as if the strings holding him up have just snapped.

“You alright?” Alex asks.

“I should have taken the full dose.”

“You gonna make it?”

He closes his eyes. “I will endeavor to do so.”

Alex presses down on the accelerator, speeding ten miles over the limit as Strand directs her to his home, his voice fading as he fights to stay conscious.

They make it. Just barely, but they make it.

She pulls up into the driveway of an old Victorian-esque house. The house has three stories and a wrap-around porch--the kind Alex has always dreamed of sitting on during cool nights, rocking in a rocking chair, a mug of hot cocoa warming her hands.

It’s an effort to help Strand out of the car. Even more so to get him up the front steps. She unlocks the front door while he rests against the facade of the house, practically dead on his feet.

“This way,” Strand says.

Alex half-carries him into the master bedroom, struggling under his weight as he relies more and more on her to stay upright. When they finally reach it, Alex nearly drops him onto the bed. “Shit. Sorry.”

He makes a noncommittal noise into the pillow.

And then he’s out.

Alex unlaces his sneakers and pulls them off, but Strand doesn’t stir. She pulls the spare blanket from the chair in the corner and covers him with it. She turns off the light and shuts the door as she exits the room, leaving him to sleep.

Alex sets herself up on the sofa in the living room. She feels uneasy leaving him, doesn’t want to be far if he needs something and is too weak to get it himself. She checks on him every few hours, but he doesn’t shift from his position. The only movement Alex detects is the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.

 

When he emerges from his bedroom the next day, Alex looks up from her phone and stares. His hair is a mess, sticking up at strange angles. She’s still not used to seeing the beard. But what really grabs her attention is the sight of his bare arms.

Scars criss-cross across his skin. Some are ragged and purple. Others a vicious red. Others still flash like silver lightning against his pale skin.

He blinks at her, his cat-eyed pupils slits in the sunlight streaming in through the bay window. “Alex?”

“Hey,” Alex says, tearing her eyes away from his scars. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a fiend’s plaything.”

Alex smiles. “I have no idea what that is. But you kind of look like you took a beating, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

He breathes out a quiet laugh. “How long was I out?”

“It’s almost noon now. So about twenty-four hours.”

“Ffyc.”

Alex laughs. She doesn’t need to know what the word means to understand the context. “Do you feel up to breakfast? I’m not much for cooking, but I’m sure we could find someplace serving brunch somewhere in this city.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You should still eat. Please? You promised me yesterday you would eat something.”

“So I did,” he says. He scratches at his beard and runs a hand through greasy hair. “I would like a shower, first.” He looks down at his outfit, at the rumpled T-shirt and jeans, and grimaces. “And a change of clothing.”

“Good idea.” She ignores the rumbling in her stomach telling her it wants to eat _now_. She hasn’t eaten since the day before. She’d been too worried for Strand and too uncomfortable with the thought of raiding his fridge. 

“I will be quick,” he says, the humor in his voice letting her know _exactly_ how sensitive his hearing is.

“Oh,” Alex says, just as he turns to leave, “don’t forget to talk to Charlie. She’s already called once or twice to check in.”

“Is she--?” He sighs, shoulders slumping just slightly. When he speaks again, it isn’t a question. “She’s angry with me.”

“I mean,” Alex says, “that’s understandable, right?”

“Yes,” he turns his eyes away. “I’m ashamed of my behavior. I was acting irrationally. I...apologize. If I upset you. Yesterday. And before. When I--” He looks at her, expression schooled into it’s usual mask. But his eyes convey sincerity and regret. “I don’t seem to be very good at keeping my promises, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll admit, what you did _was_ pretty shitty.”

He flinches.

“ _But_ ,” Alex continues, “I appreciate the apology. We’ll just have to work on the rest. Since you’re new at this whole having a partner thing.”

Is she imagining it, or does the line of his shoulders ease?

“Thank you,” he says. He looks as if he wishes to say something else, but he turns and walks in the direction of his bedroom, presumably to shower and change.

When he returns, he looks more like the Dr. Strand she’s come to know. He’s clean shaven, his hair once again styled neatly. Instead of his usual three-piece suit, he wears dark slacks and a grey button-down shirt, untucked, the scars on his arms hidden underneath long sleeves. His sunglasses are folded in his chest pocket.

Alex blushes when she catches herself staring. “Ready?”

He nods. “Would you mind driving?”

“I don’t know if you remember,” Alex says, “but I took a taxi from the airport to your office. We drove here in your car.”

“I remember.” The corner of his mouth turns up in a self-depreciating smile. “I, ah, still seem to be suffering aftereffects of the witcher elixirs. It would be best if you were to drive.”

Alex laughs. “You have a _hangover_.”

“Correct.”

Alex laughs again. A witcher with a _hangover_. “Serves you right, if you ask me.” 

“At least I’m no longer hallucinating.”

“ _What_?”

He grimaces. “Volume. Please.”

Alex manages to tone down her disbelief, if only a little. “You’re joking, right?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Right?” Alex asks.

She takes his silence to mean he isn’t joking. 

The entire drive to the restaurant, Alex tries to get more information out of him. But he remains tight-lipped, refusing to tell her what, exactly, he’d been hallucinating.

Strand orders scrambled eggs and wheat toast, a bowl of yogurt topped with freshly cut fruit, and a large cup of coffee. Alex orders a bagel slathered in cream cheese and her usual ice mocha cappuccino. She tears off bites of her bagel as she watches him demolish his breakfast.

“I thought you said you weren’t hungry,” she says, shifting the ice in her drink around with her straw. She takes a long drink.

“Witcher elixirs burn through a lot of calories while also suppressing the appetite,” he says. He crunches through a piece of toast, piled high with eggs. He chews and swallows before continuing. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“They’re not habit forming, are they?” She worries his elixirs might be like other drugs, that she’ll need to watch Strand to make sure he hasn’t become dependent on those little bottles.

“The toxicity would kill the witcher before they could form a habit. By the end, I was taking more just to compensate for the exhaustion. If I had continued, well…”

Strand shovels a spoonful of fruit into his mouth. He doesn’t finish his sentence.

“I hate knowing you were poisoning yourself,” she says, toying with her straw. “I could have helped, if you had let me. I have an entire _team_ of aspiring investigative journalists interning for Pacific Northwest Stories right now. And a private investigator on retainer.”

He lowers his spoon, turning his attention fully on her. “Thank you. For worrying for me. And I apologize, again, for making you do so. I didn’t realize…”

He looks so unsure of himself that Alex finishes the thought for him. “You didn’t realize how many people care for you.”

“No,” he says, quietly. “I did not.”

They each go back to their breakfasts. Alex finishes her coffee and sits back in the booth. She feels better now, the atmosphere between them less heavy. If it weren’t for the oncoming apocalypse, the moment could almost be called perfect.

The peace is shattered when Alex catches sight of the television playing muted in the corner.

“Holy shit,” she says, eyes glued to the figure standing on the screen.

Bright blond curls. Startlingly green eyes. Impeccably cut suit.

“What?” Strand turns in his seat to look at the television.

“That’s Carl Jenkins,” Alex says.

“No,” Strand says. When he turns back around, his expression has gone tight. “That man is Warren.”


	26. Tapes VIII

When faced with new and startling information, Alex does what she does best--she dives into research.

Carl Jenkins--the _real_ Carl Jenkins--is dead. In June of 2015, the young college graduate was riding his bike, juggling the coffee order for the law firm where he interned, when he was hit by a bus. He died instantly.

The man who left the creepy message on Alex’s phone, the man who sat down at her table as soon as Strand was out of sight, who drank from Strand’s coffee cup, was not Carl Jenkins, but Warren. Coralee’s sorcerer.

According to Alex’s research, Thomas Warren is the CEO of a company dedicated to clean energy, a company called Daeva Corporation. A philanthropist, he donates millions of dollars every year to several causes. Including, but not limited to, feeding the hungry, housing the poor, and conservation of endangered animals.

“I can’t find anything that would suggest he’s a sorcerer. By all accounts, he’s a forty-something stand-up citizen,” says the tinny voice coming from the computer speakers.

“Damn,” Alex says. “That’s about all I could find, too.”

“Whoever he is, if he’s a sorcerer like you say, he’s covered his tracks pretty well. All of his paperwork looks legit. Too legit, maybe. I can have a friend look into it, if you want. They’re pretty good with the counterfeit stuff.”

“Is your friend ‘good with the counterfeit stuff’ because they are--” Alex shakes her head. “Nevermind, MK. I don’t want to know.”

MK laughs. “Do you want them to look it over, or not?”

“Sure. My source is pretty confident, but it’d be nice to have some concrete proof.”

“Your source? You mean your Dr. Strand?”

Alex sighs. “Why does everyone say that, like he’s my pet or something?”

“Oh, honey,” MK says, like Alex is missing something just in front of her face.

Alex blushes, heat rushing all the way up to the tips of her ears. She ducks her head, even though she’s alone in her office, with no one to witness her embarrassment. “Well, thanks for your help.”

“No problem, Alex. I’ll let you know if my friend happens to learn anything.”

The call ends. Alex sits back in her computer chair, disappointed with the lack of new leads.

It isn’t as if she doesn’t trust Strand. If he says Thomas Warren is the same Warren Coralee was involved with, then Thomas Warren is exactly who the witcher says he is. She only wishes she has something more to go on, some kind of ammunition with which to bring to the interview.

Alex still can’t believe Warren agreed to an interview. 

It hadn’t even taken her eleven calls to get through. Almost as if he was expecting it.

Why would he so readily agree to meet with her? To prove he has nothing to hide? Then why masquerade as Carl Jenkins, in the first place?

Alex eyes her phone. No messages yet from Strand.

Alex shakes away her disappointment. The witcher is due to land in Seattle later that evening. Until then, she shouldn’t expect to hear anything from him. Until then, she should get back to work.

Alex manages two minutes of staring at her inbox, as if she’ll find answers hidden within the depths of her 102 unread messages, when her phone buzzes against her desk.

She nearly falls out of her chair in her haste to pick it up.

She throws it back on the desk when she sees not Strand’s name, but a 1-800 number on the screen. She hangs her head in her hands with a groan. “ _Fuck_. This is bad. This is _so_ bad.”

Oh, honey, indeed. 

 

“Are you sure you’re going to need that?” Alex asks as Strand collects his witcher case from the trunk of her car. “We’re here for an interview, not some sort of duel.”

Strand frowns. “You don’t know Warren.”

Alex shrugs, her attention somewhere down by her shoes. “You’re the witcher.”

He slings the strap of his case over his head, settling it across his chest. He tries not to be unsettled by the fact Alex refuses to look at him.

She hasn’t so much as glanced in his direction since she picked him up from the airport the day before.

He follows her through the parking lot, staying several paces behind her. It’s been at least a hundred years since he last played the part of hired muscle, but he falls into the routine easily enough. 

Alex looks back once, but Strand keeps his eyes on their surroundings.

He pretends not to notice the disappointment which flashes through her eyes, before she turns around. Her hand clenches more tightly around her recorder.

As they approach, five men dressed in business suits spill out of the lobby. Each one carries an intricately carved staff. 

“Alex,” Strand says, tight with warning. “Get behind me.”

Alex stops, but stubbornly remains where she is. “What’s going on? Who are those guys? Why are they all carrying sticks?”

He pulls her back, putting himself between her and the mages. “People who mean us harm.”

“What?” Alex asks, her eyes going wide.

“We walked straight into a trap.” He drops his witcher case on the ground, kicking the mechanism to open it. His silver sword gleams in the sunlight as he takes it from its velvet resting place. “Go. I will take care of them.”

Alex shakes her head. “I’m not going to leave you here.”

A fireball whizzes past Strand’s head. Strand curses and makes the Quen sign with his fingers, turning Alex’s skin a glittering gold as the protection spell settles over her. “Get back to the car, Alex.”

“No! What if something happens to you?”

Another fireball scorches the air. Strand pushes it back with the sign of Aard. He readies himself, dropping into a low stance, sword at the ready.

“Go,” he pleads. He promised her he wouldn’t use Axii on her again. But he would much rather face her wrath than see her hurt. He'll force her to leave, if he has to.

His attention focused solely on the mages, he doesn’t see the white van until it pulls to a screeching, swerving halt.

The side door rolls open. “Get in.”

Strand freezes when he sees the woman inside the van. His heart stops in his chest for one dangerous beat when he hears her voice. But his instincts kick him into action.

Leaving his case behind, Strand urges Alex into motion. Holding his sword in one hand and Alex’s arm in the other, he races toward the van. They have just enough time to slam the door shut behind them before the van rockets into motion, throwing them forward as the van reverses, then backwards as it speeds through the Daeva Corporation lot.

The mages attempt to chase after them, but the van is too fast. A few fire off spells. Most go wide, but a few strike the van and bounce off, leaving neither scorch-marks nor rents in the metal. The insistent vibration of his witcher medallion tells him the van must be under layers of heavy protection magic.

“Holy fuck,” Alex says. “What the hell just happened?”

Strand wants to go to her. He wants to steady her as the van rocks, threatening to flip as the driver turns on two wheels. But he cannot move.

The woman who beckoned them into the van smiles a long familiar smile. “Hello, Richard. Alex, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Alex jaw drops, finally recognizing the woman.

Strand clears his throat. “Alex, I’d like you to meet Coralee.”


	27. Tapes IX

The safehouse does not look safe at all. The roof, missing a majority of its shingles, sags in the middle. The windows are boarded up with rotting wood, covered in aged graffiti. The lawn is wild, with overgrown grass and weeds choking the skeletons of bushes leaning against the yellowed stucco of the house.

Alex picks her way through the waist-high foliage, crossing her fingers she doesn’t pick up any ticks on her way. Coralee unlocks the door with a key, completely ignoring the moldy orange sticker on the door proclaiming the house to be unfit for residence. She holds it open for Alex and Strand to enter.

Alex gasps as soon as she steps over the threshold. The interior of the house in no way matches the exterior. Bright white furniture, gleaming hardwood floors. Pristine windows look out on a perfectly groomed lawn, landscaped like something out of the Home & Garden magazine. The ceiling above them is level, in no danger of collapsing in on itself.

Coralee smiles. “The exterior is the result of a powerful glamour.”

“Glamour?” Alex asks.

“A spell which alters the appearance of something,” Strand says. His eyes never leave Coralee. “Usually to beautify something. Or someone.” 

“We did something of the opposite,” Coralee says. She sweeps into the house, the flowing white skirt of her dress free of grass stains and hitchhikers. 

Alex’s jeans had not been so fortunate. It will be a miracle for Alex to be able to untie her sneakers.

“Let me give you the tour,” Coralee says.

She shows them the kitchen with it’s updated appliances and fully stocked pantry. She shows them the garage, converted into some sort of magical laboratory, like the room in Strand’s office where he brews witcher elixirs. She shows them down the hall where there are only two doors. One leads into a guest bathroom. The other, the only bedroom in the house.

“May we have a moment?” Coralee asks.

Alex blinks at the sudden question, looking back and forth between the enchantress and Strand. “Uh, sure. I’m sure you have a lot to catch up on. I’ll just be, ah, out there.” She points back toward the living area and backs awkwardly out of the room.

The door closes and locks behind her.

Something heavy sits in the pit of her stomach as she flops down onto the sofa. She buries her face in one of the thick throw pillows and tries to breath as everything catches up with her.

 

The door closes behind Alex. Coralee twists her wrist and the lock clicks as it engages.

Strand watches Coralee, wary now they’ve been left alone. 

“I imagine you have questions,” Coralee says. If she feels the weight of his stare, she doesn’t show it. She stands tall and exquisite in the dim light of the single lamp.

He does have questions. Questions he’s held onto for centuries. But now she stands before him and he cannot think of a single one.

“You left,” he says.

Coralee nods, hazel eyes full of regret. “I did.”

“I looked for you. For five years, before I gave you up as dead. A sacrifice for Warren’s cult.”

Coralee nods again. “I know.”

“I loved you.”

“I know.”

Strand growls. He wants to put his fist through the nearest wall. “You never loved me, did you?”

“I did,” Coralee says. “As much as I could ever love anyone.”

“But you loved Warren, as well.”

“Yes, I did. He blinded me with his power. I did not see his madness until it was almost too late.”

Strand hates the protectiveness that surges within him. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, Ryszard. He never hurt me.” Coralee sits on the bed. She crosses one long leg over the other and rearranges her skirt before she looks at him again. “But he wanted me to hurt you.”

Strand remains standing. It’s all he can do not to pace back and forth. “Why?”

“You’re a witcher. You were in the way of his ultimate goal.”

“Tiamat,” he says.

Coralee nods. “I left him so I could protect you from him. So you could be there to stop him, when the time comes.”

Strand drops onto the bed beside her. They sit in silence for a long stretch of time before he asks, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you send that bracelet to Alex? Why lure me to Seattle? To her?”

Coralee smiles. His hand burns when she places hers overtop his on the mattress between them. “I knew you couldn’t do this yourself. You’ll need her, in the coming days.”

“You put her in danger,” Strand says, taking his hand back. He nearly stands again, ready to begin pacing, when Coralee stops him with a hand on his knee.

“She was already in danger. We all are. The fate of the entire world is at stake, Ryszard.”

Strand balls his hands into fists.

“You love her, don’t you?” Coralee asks.

He says nothing. He...cares for Alex, a great deal. But Coralee had lost the right to his innermost thoughts when she left him.

“I thought so,” Coralee says, a small smile on her face.

“Stay out of my head.”

“Darling, I don’t need to peek into your head. You used to look at me like that, you know.”

Strand doesn’t know how to respond. 

Coralee claps him on the back. She stands, smoothing out her dress. “Take care of her, Ryszard. But don’t forget to take care of yourself.”

He waits several minutes after she leaves to follow her back into the living area.

“You may stay as long as you need to,” Coralee says to Alex. “It will be safer here than your apartment.”

“Wait,” Alex says, frowning, “how did you--”

“I must be going now,” Coralee says, glancing at Strand before her gaze returns to Alex.

“But--” Alex says.

“Unfortunately, I cannot give you the interview you’re looking for, Alex.”

She leaves, breezing out the front door with a flare of her skirts, before Alex can demand she stay.

 

Hours later, Alex and Strand sit on opposite sides of the sofa, each nursing a drink. Alex isn’t usually one for whiskey, but after the day they’ve had and cut with soda, it isn’t so bad.

“How does it feel?” Alex manages to ask. After Coralee’s abrupt departure, Strand has been silent.

He looks at her, cat eyes questioning.

“To see her again.” Alex looks into her glass, swirling the amber liquid against the sides of the crystal glass. “You must be happy, to have her back in your life.”

“I doubt I will ever see her again,” Strand says.

Alex looks up. “Why not?”

He avoids her eyes. “I have no wish to rekindle anything which might have been between us.”

“No?”

Strand downs the rest of his glass down like a shot. He puts the glass down on the coffee table with a definitive air. “No.”

The heavy weight in her stomach lifts, just a little. She relaxes into the cushions, tucking her bare feet beneath her.

Strand mistakes her relief for exhaustion. “You may take the bed, if you’d like. I will keep watch tonight.”

Alex doesn’t want to leave him alone. He doesn’t show it, and he’ll deny it if she asks, but Alex knows it must have been difficult to let Coralee go, after seeing her for the first time in centuries. “Not yet.”

He nods and gets up to refill their drinks. She shivers at the the tingle that shoots up her arm when his fingers brush hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was only supposed to be twenty chapters. And then it grew to thirty. And now...it's looking like it'll be _slightly_ more than that. Whoops;;


	28. Dreams V

She doesn’t know how it happens, but she is sitting on the sofa with Strand one moment and dreaming the next.

She stands in a forest at night. A thick blanket of fog swirls at her feet. The moon hangs high, glowing a deep red beyond skeletal-like trees branching into the sky like clawed fingers. A howl rents through the atypical silence of the forest.

Footsteps crunch, but it takes Alex a long moment to determine where the sound comes from. She swings around, looking about frantically. Perhaps it is only the sound of the cat, her blue-eyed protector?

But no. Alex shrinks back as a woman emerges from deep in the forest. She’s tall, taller than any person Alex has ever met, including Strand. She walks barefoot through the underbrush, water dripping from a damp gown made from sea plants. Her skin is tinged blue, like a drowned body washed upon the shore. Her hair, black as the abyss, hangs in a tangled wet mess all the way down to her waist. Her eyes are huge in her face, completely black, like those of a deep sea fish evolved beyond the need for eyesight.

A pack of monsters, snarling and grotesque, follows the woman through the woods.

The woman raises an instrument to her mouth. She blows into an elaborately carved horn. Alex covers her ears. The sound is far louder than Alex would have predicted, reverberating all the way down to her bones.

The darkness of the night somehow deepens. Shadows take on a life of their own. Scores of monsters materialize around her, stepping out of the mist as if they were always there. A few wraiths float through the trees, but beyond the spectres, Alex cannot put a name to the types of monsters she sees. All she knows is they are hungry. Starving, even.

The woman points into the distance. The monsters thunder through the woods in the instructed direction, eager to strike and tear and bite into warm flesh. To feed.

The woman throws her head back and laughs.

When Alex wakes, it’s to the sound of maniacal laughter and the sight of Strand hovering over her, his expression twisted with concern.

Alex sits up with Strand’s help. Her head pounds with the racing beat of her heart.

“Are you alright?” Strand asks.

“Fine. Fine.” Alex says. “It was just a dream. I’m fine.”

Strand frowns. He looks as if he wants to check her over for injury. “I could not wake you.”

“I’ve never had someone try to pull me out of my nightmares.” Alex cards her hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face. “Could it have anything to do with the oneiromancy?”

“A trance?”

Alex shrugs. “You would know more about it than I would.”

“What did you dream?” he asks, hesitant.

Alex tells him. She describes the woman, how she blew into her horn and summoned monsters into the world.

Strand’s frown deepens. “Tiamat.”

“ _That_ was Tiamat?”

Strand nods. “A chthonic goddess of both creation and destruction. According to the mythology, the Horn of Tiamat will restore her to her former glory. She will rise up from the depths and bring darkness to the world, to punish those who locked her away for so long.”

“Who could have locked her away?” Alex asks. She shakes her head and puts up her hand, holding off his answer. She pats her pockets, looking for her recorder. Switching it on, she repeats the question. “Who could have locked her away?”

“I don’t know.”

Alex raises her brows. “You don’t know?”

“I may be centuries old, but the religion was long dead before even I was born. Only a few fanatics remained--sorcerers with unending lifespans.”

“Like Warren’s cult and the Order of the Cenophaes?”

“Precisely,” Strand says.

“Then we need to get to the Horn of Tiamat, first,” Alex says.

Strand’s brows go up.

Alex laughs. “No, not to call her. But the two cults, they’ll be looking for it right?”

“Yes.”

“Then we need to find it and destroy it. No Horn, no Tiamat. No Tiamat, no apocalypse. No apocalypse, no monsters. We save the world and solve the mystery of the Black Tapes.”

A slow smile curls the corner of Strand’s scarred mouth. 

He moves suddenly. Alex yelps as she is lifted into the air, blushing furiously. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“If we are going to save the world, Alex Reagan, you will need to be fully rested first.”

He carries her down the hall and into the bedroom, his hold steady even as Alex squirms in his grasp. 

Alex flushes even deeper as he deposits her, gently, onto the bed.

“Sleep,” he says. 

She nearly argues that she isn’t tired, but exhaustion hits her so hard, she could have sworn--despite not having seen his fingers trace anything in the air--he cast a spell on her. Alex collapses back into the pillows, too tired to even care. “What about you?”

“I will keep watch.”

Alex yawns. “Goodnight, Richard.”

“Goodnight, fy nghalon.”

Alex wants to ask what the words mean, but by the time he closes the door, she’s already asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, the sin is coming. But right now, they're privately dealing with the fact they've finally admitted to themselves they are having feelings. (Give me one or two more chapters ;} )


	29. Tapes X

A week later, taking a break from the nonstop search for the Horn of Tiamat to do some much needed shopping, Alex is at the grocery store, examining a carton of eggs. Lifting the eggs out of their cups, checking them for cracks in their shells, it’s about as normal as Alex has felt in a long, long time. Since before the wraith turned up at the station. So when her phone rings, Nic’s goofy face grinning up at her, Alex nearly doesn’t answer.

Nearly.

“Hey, Nic,” she says, balancing the phone between her shoulder and ear. “What’s up?”

“Oh, _hey_ , Alex. How’s it going? Everything good?” Nic says, an edge to his voice Alex swears she’s never heard before.

“Yeah,” Alex says, slowly. “Everything’s fine. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. No problems. You know me, just checking in, like I normally do.”

Alex frowns and places the carton of eggs in her basket. Something is definitely up. “Nic?”

“Hold on.” The phone makes a snuffling sound, followed by the soft fall of rain. “Okay.”

“Are you outside?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure how good his hearing is, so I’m sort of down the street.”

“Nic, what’s going on? Is Dr. Strand there?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Nic says. Alex finally recognizes the edge in his voice for what it is. Panic. “I need you to come to the station. I know you’re busy with the whole world-saving thing, but _please_. As your friend and number one bestest producer everest, I need you here right _now_.”

“What the hell is happening over there?”

“It’s a _mutiny_!” Nic says. Alex can picture him throwing his hands in the air. “Interns, assistants, even the goddamned mail guy. Strand marched his well-toned ass in here and _stole_ all of _everyone_. They’re all running around doing his witcher bidding _as we speak_.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“You _know_ I never kid around when it comes to a well-toned ass, Alex.”

Alex laughs. “You’re ridiculous.”

“ _I’m_ ridiculous?” Nic asks. “Alex, I don’t know if I’ve made this clear or not, but Strand has taken over the station. Terry and Paul are just standing there, _laughing_ , like this is all some kind of joke. But we sort of have a show to run. _Please_ , will you come get your witcher?”

“Alright, alright,” Alex says. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Thank you,” Nic says, sighing with relief.

Alex returns the carton of eggs to it’s refrigerated shelf. She replaces her basket by the door and leaves the grocery store with a sigh.

What could Strand possibly be up to now?

 

The station is nowhere near the shambles Alex expects it to be in. From Nic’s call, Alex expected people to be dashing frantically about, papers clutched to their chests. Instead, she walks into to see everyone sitting quietly at computers, typing away. 

Alex finds Nic in the breakroom, gulping down coffee, looking as if the end of the world has come early. Alex switches on her recorder.

“So, hey, I think you might have been exaggerating,” Alex says, by way of greeting.

“It’s been a total take over,” Nic says. “Strand came in, said ‘I’m de captain now--’”

“He did not,” Alex says, laughing.

“And Terry and Paul won’t do anything,” he continues, as if Alex hadn’t interrupted him. “They think this whole thing is hysterical. They’re probably in Paul’s office, right now, cackling at my plight, like those old, married Muppets.”

“And what, exactly, is your plight?”

“We’re a radio station, Alex. We produce radio. _Every day_. Even if they world is ending, we have a duty to our listeners. But I can’t find anyone to help me do that. Everyone wants to hang out with the legendary witcher. I’ve had to resort to playing old stories as a kind of Throwback Thursday, Alex. Except it’s _Saturday_.”

“Okay, okay, I see your point,” Alex says. “Where can I find him?”

Nic slumps back against the counter. “Conference room five.”

Alex pats him on the shoulder and leaves him to bemoan his fate to the only thing willing to listen, the coffeemaker. 

Strand looks up from his laptop as soon as Alex enters the conference room. Three of her interns sit at the table, as well, each with their own laptop, but they’re too engrossed in their research to acknowledge her presence in the room.

It’s a testament to how comfortable he feels here that he isn’t wearing his sunglasses. It’s also a testament to how normalized his presence here has become that none of her interns are distracted by his strange eyes or the fact he’s a witcher. They’re researching with the same diligence they would had Alex or Nic asked them to do so.

Alex smiles at the scene.

“Alex,” he says. His scarred lips curl upward in an answering smile.

“Nic called me about some kind of hostile takeover?”

“I would not call it hostile,” Strand says. “I am simply utilizing all of my resources.” 

“All of _my_ resources, you mean.”

Strand laughs his quiet laugh. “Ah. Yes. I apologize for not asking first.”

“It’s fine,” Alex says. “I’m just going to need a few people back so we can actually run the radio station. Nic seems to think it’s important.”

“But, Ms. Alex,” Toby says, turning in his seat to look at her. “Isn’t this a little more important?”

“Yeah,” says Stephanie, blinking owlishly at Alex through thick-framed glasses. “You said it yourself on the podcast. The fate of the world is at stake.”

“That’s true,” Alex says, “but, you know, what’s the point in saving the world if you let it go to waste in the meantime?”

“But--”

“Ms. Reagan is right,” Strand says, interrupting Peter before he can make his argument. “Your work at the station is just as important as what you’ve been doing here. I apologize for taking you away from your duties. Please, return to Mr. Silver.”

The interns’ shoulders slump, but they gather their laptops and shuffle out of the room.

Alex sits down across from Strand. “So, anything I can do to help? I’m probably worth at least three interns.”

Strand laughs. “At least.”

“Seriously, though. When I left the safe house last night, you were so frustrated I thought you might start banging your head against the wall.”

“I had something of a realization,” he says.

“What kind of realization?” Alex asks.

“I cannot do this alone.” He laughs at Alex’s expression. “I know, it’s what you’ve been saying all along. But I am old and it is a habit I find very difficult to break.”

“But you’re breaking it now?”

“If the Horn is sealed away by magic, as I believe it to be, witcher methods will be ineffective in determining its location.”

Alex nods. “If two different sects of sorcerers haven’t found it yet, magic probably isn’t the way to go.”

“Precisely. Which leaves us with something sorcerers are loathe to rely on.”

“Technology,” Alex guesses.

Strand smiles. “The internet is something which truly escapes them. Modern magic users have found a home on message boards, sharing spells and recipes for their potions and elixirs. But sorcerers such as Tannis Braun and Thomas Warren prefer to rely on their aging, crumbling books and grimoires, rather than the free exchange of information found on the web.”

“Well,” Alex says, “I can internet as well as the twenty-somethings we have interning for us. Where should I start?”

Strand looks down at the laptop keyboard, then back to Alex, something reluctant in his expression. “I had something else in mind. If you’re amenable to it?”

Alex’s brows draw down. “Like what?”

“I’d like for you to try to divine the Horn’s location through oneiromancy. Thus far, your dreams have been instrumental in our investigation. Perhaps we should not discount them as a tool in our search.”

“But I don’t know how to control them. They just kind of happen.”

“I could attempt to guide you,” Strand says. “As I did with the meditation.”

Alex considers it, but not for long. She wants to be able to control her dreams--she’s let them terrify her long enough. “Okay.”

Strand continues, “I’m not saying it will work. I am by no means an expert in oneiromancy.”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give it a shot,” Alex says. She stands. “Your place or mine?”

Strand adjusts one of his cufflinks. He suddenly cannot meet her gaze. “You mean to go now?”

“I can’t just sit around and wait ‘til bedtime. C’mon.”

“I--yes. We can use the safehouse. The wards should protect you there.”

As Strand follows her through the station, Alex catches sight of Nic. He gives her two thumbs up and waggles his eyebrows at her.

Alex only just resists the urge to facepalm. She rolls her eyes at him instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few people asked/mentioned the language Strand speaks. It's Welsh.  
> The author of the Witcher books, Andrzej Sapkowski, uses Welsh as the language of the elves. In this fic, there are no elves (they either died off a long time ago or bred themselves with humans--like the interbreeding of neandertals and homo sapiens [lol lookit me using my anthro degree]), so you could also take it that Ryszard of Strand was from Wales. The name Ryszard is actually Polish, however, as a callback to Sapkowski, who is Polish.


	30. Dreams VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be one chapter, but it got too long, so I split it into two.

Strand lets her into the safehouse, where he’s been staying since Coralee rescued them.

Once they are inside, however, he seems at a loss. His fingers again go to the cufflinks at his wrist.

Could he be just as nervous as Alex? Is his heart beating hard in his chest, too?

“Would you like some tea?” he asks.

Alex smiles. “Caffeine probably won’t help me get to sleep.”

Strand laughs. “Yes, of course.”

“Should we get started?” Alex asks, gesturing down the hall to the bedroom, heat blossoming high on her cheeks.

“I suppose we should,” Strand says. “After you.”

Alex isn’t sure whether she’s disappointed or relieved he doesn’t carry her to the bed, this time. He follows her like a shadow through the dim hallway and into the bedroom. While she arranges herself on the bed, Strand switches on the single lamp on the bedside table.

Alex closes her eyes, not trusting herself to look at the witcher.

“Relax,” Strand says.

Alex bites her lip, willing herself to be calm. 

They’re both adults. Professionals. Nothing untoward is going to happen. Alex is just here so she can go to sleep and dream about an ancient musical instrument capable of returning a chthonic goddess of chaos to her former, destructive glory. They’re here to _save_ the _world_. Nothing else.

Strand’s warmth radiates from him, his presence close by her bedside.

Alex digs the heels of her palms into her eyes. “Sorry. Did I mention I have difficulty falling asleep?”

The smile is audible in his voice. “Breathe, Alex.”

Alex breathes, following Strand’s example. In. One, two, three, four. Out. One, two, three, four.

Despite her nervousness, she feels some of the tension in her muscles ease.

“Imagine a color,” Strand says.

Alex smiles and breathes. Her color comes easily now. A cool, crystalline blue. This time it’s sharp, refreshing, like newly melted spring water. She lets herself float on it as it fills her, as it makes its way through her body, starting at her toes, as Strand guides her in the meditation.

She breathes.

“You’re safe here, Alex,” Strand says, from somewhere far away. “I will protect you.”

She floats on her color, her mind blissfully blank.

“Imagine,” Strand says. There might be other words, but Alex cannot make them out. They’re too far away. “Imagine...”

Alex opens her eyes to find herself in a desert. The sun shines down, heat radiating from the burning sand at her feet. The black cat sits by her side. It looks up, blinking slowly at her with it’s stunning blue eyes. It rubs its face against the denim of her jeans, then winds itself around her legs. It nips at her calves with it’s teeth, urging her forward.

She follows the cat to a cave. Statues carved from desert rock stand on either side of the entrance. The details of the statues have been rubbed smooth by hundreds of years of sun and sand and wind, but Alex can still make out faces of some of the monsters she’s seen in her dreams--growling, snarling things which make Alex shiver, despite the temperature. As Alex watches, the statues crumble into dust.

A rumble comes from inside the cave. A wraith, much like the one which haunted the PNWS station, flies out of the cave. It screams from behind the veil covering its face, clawed hands extended toward Alex as it approaches.

Alex cries out and falls back onto her ass in the sand, raising her arms to protect her head.

Nothing happens.

Alex peaks out from behind her arms, but the wraith is gone. As if it had never been. 

The cat licks it’s paw, it’s bottle brush tail sweeping back and forth. Is she mistaken or is there humor in it’s eyes?

Alex brushes sand from her ass once she rights herself. “Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.”

As if in answer, the cat gets up and walks toward the cave. When Alex doesn’t follow, it turns back to look at her with an expectant expression.

“What if there are more monsters inside?” Alex asks. She should feel stupid for talking to the cat when it obviously cannot answer, but she doesn’t. Even without words, Alex knows the animal understands her.

The cat enters the cave. Alex rushes after it.

The cave should be dark, but it isn’t. Torches burn along the walls.

“Cave paintings,” Alex says, running her fingers along the sandstone. She takes in the story the paintings tell as she walks deeper into the cave. A stick figure with a staff in one hand, a horn in the other. The stick figure blows into the horn. A taller stick figure with wild hair ascends from the sea. A horde of beasts follow behind it.

“Tiamat,” Alex says.

A rhythmic tapping comes from the cave entrance--wood against stone--echoing all around her. Alex whirs around just in time to see a burst of fire shoot across the cave. The black cat goes flying, knocked into the cave wall. It tries to stand on trembling legs, but it collapses back onto the cave floor. It doesn’t move again.

Warren, wearing bright red robes and carrying an intricate staff, approaches unhurried. He walks passed her, not looking at her, as if Alex doesn’t exist. He goes to an alter which Alex had not yet noticed. Upon the altar is an ivory horn, like those the Vikings used to use.

Warren picks up the horn and blows. The sound echoes through the cave, loud enough to send Alex staggering as she rushes to the cat. She picks it up in her arms, cradling it against her chest as she runs out of the cave.

Tiamat’s maniacal laughter follows Alex into the waking world.


	31. Dreams VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised you smut, didn't I?

Alex shoots upright with a gasp. For a long moment, she doesn’t recognize her surroundings, with its Bob Ross-esque landscapes hung on freshly painted walls, white IKEA furniture, and the plain, rumbled blue duvet. She sits there, panting until it all comes crashing back.

The safehouse. With Strand.

“Alex?” he says, concern clear in his eyes.

Alex throws herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Relief washes over her at his solidness, his strength. He’s okay. What she’d seen in her dreams has not yet come to pass. “Richard.”

Strand freezes for a full second, before he winds his arms around her, returning her embrace. He smoothes her hair as she buries her face in his shoulder. She breathes in his scent, leather and fresh herbs. 

“It’s alright, fy nghalon. You are safe.”

Warm lips press a kiss against her temple.

Alex pulls away, searching his eyes. She licks her lips at the intensity she sees there. Strand’s eyes catch the movement, his cat-eyed pupils dilating. 

She kisses him. Or he kisses her. Alex can’t be sure. But what does it matter when their lips brush, hesitant, at first, but with greater confidence when neither pulls away? What does it matter when his hands are tangled in her hair? Or when Alex grips his biceps, sparks of electricity lighting up everywhere they touch?

He nibbles at her lower lip. Alex gasps and grips at him tighter. She tilts her head, allows him to deepen the kiss, meets his tongue with a swipe of her own.

She’s breathless by the time they pull away. “Wow.”

Strand laughs. “I, ah, apologize. I shouldn’t have--”

“No, no,” Alex says, before he can get any further with his apology. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not.”

“You’re not?”

Alex wants to smooth away the worry she sees in his eyes. “I’m not.”

She leans into him, placing a chaste kiss at the corner of his scarred mouth, where it turns up in a perpetual wry smile. His eyes slip closed and he swallows.

“Rwy'n dy garu di,” he says. “Eich bod yn fy nghalon.”

Alex smiles. She kisses him again on the other side of his mouth. “I recognize a couple of those words. What do they mean?”

He takes one of her hands in his. He places it over his heart, where she can feel it beating like a hammer in his chest. “My heart. You are my heart, Alex Reagan. Eich bod yn fy nghalon.”

Alex can barely breathe. But still, she manages, “And the first thing you said?”

How could anyone believe witchers to be emotionless? When Strand’s gaze is filled with such devotion, Alex nearly drowns in it? 

“Rwy’n dy garu di,” he repeats. And then, he translates for her, knocking the breath out of her completely, “I love you.”

Alex kisses him, slotting their lips together in something desperate and demanding. She fists her hands in the lapels of his jacket, pulls him closer as she lays back on the bed, covering her with his body.

He breaks the kiss, sweeping his thumbs over the swell of her cheekbones before covering her mouth with his. He licks his way into her mouth, delving inside to taste and explore. Alex arches beneath him, her fingers going to the buttons of his shirt.

Strand catches her hand. He kisses her knuckles. “Are you sure?”

“I love you,” she says. “I’m sure.”

He ducks his head and claims her mouth in a kiss. He trails open-mouthed kissed down the column of her throat and rakes his teeth against the sensitive skin there, making her gasp and her fingers fumble as she unbuttons his shirt. “Say it again.”

She stumbles over the words, but she manages to repeat the phrase he’d said before. “Rwy’n dy garu di.”

It’s possible he says something in return. Or perhaps he simply growls in response. He wrests himself out of his suit jacket and undoes the cufflinks at his wrists. Alex threads the last button through its hole and pushes his shirt from his shoulders.

And stares.

She should have expected it, but the sight still draws a breath of surprise from her. Like his arms, his chest is a map of old injuries. Without thinking, she traces a long, spidery scar from his pectoral, down to his stomach. His muscles jump beneath her touch and he hisses as if she’s burned him. 

“I apologize,” he says, expression guarded, “if it displeases you.”

“I’m not displeased,” Alex says. She brushes the pads of her fingers over another scar, this one a small starburst upon his skin. “It just makes me sad to see you were hurt so often.”

“It was long ago,” he says, but Alex can see her words have eased some of his anxiety. 

Alex fiddles with the hem of her shirt, fighting her own anxiety. Beyond the scars, Strand is fit, his muscles toned and well-defined. Alex has seen Coralee--how beautiful she is, with her trim waist and hourglass curves. If Coralee is the type of woman Strand is used to being with, how is Alex supposed to compare to that? With the long hours she works and her fondness for junk food, there’s a softness to her body, specifically around her belly, which she hides behind overlarge T-shirts and jeans. Surely Strand will find her undesirable. 

As if he can sense her nervousness, Strand takes one of her hands in his. He leads it down between their bodies and places it on the swell of his arousal. “I have never seen more divine a sight than you spread out beneath me. Let me worship you.”

Heat pools between her legs. “You must say that to all the girls.”

He shakes his head. “There is no one else. Only you, Alex.”

His hands go to the hem of her shirt. He pauses in question.

Alex raises her arms up and allows him to draw the shirt over her head.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. 

If he were anyone else, Alex might have thought it a lie to spare her feelings. But the hunger in Strand’s eyes is unmistakable.

They kiss, hot and frantic. Alex unbuckles Strand’s belt. She pops the button on his slacks and drags the zipper down as he nibbles at the shell of her ear. He groans when she slides her hand down his slacks, passed the elastic barrier of his boxers, and takes his cock in her hand.

She strokes him, already fully hard and straining, making him buck against her. He dips his head down to kiss her breasts through the lace of her bra. He traces her nipples through the fabric with his tongue. She gasps and arches her back, allowing him to unclasp her bra. Reluctantly, she snakes her hand out of his pants so he can remove it completely.

He rewards her by burying his face in between her bared breasts. He cups them in his hands, rolls the nipples between his fingers. He pays each one particular attention, kissing and suckling, until she’s a panting mess beneath him.

“Please,” she says, “please, I need--”

She can hear the smile in his voice when he scrapes his teeth across the sensitive bud of her nipple. “What do you need, Alex?”

“You. I need you. _Please_.”

He kisses her, his fingers working the button on her jeans. Alex raises her ass to help him wrestle her out of the denim, laughing a little when they get caught on her shoes.

She makes a disappointed sound when he leaves the bed, but watches, curious, as he kneels on the floor. He unlaces her sneakers and pulls them from her feet. He removes her socks and places a reverent kiss on each of her insteps. 

Strand’s eyes meet hers. The blue of his irises is nearly black with desire. He grins, looking for all the world like the cat who got the cream.

Without warning he pulls her down the bed, making Alex yelp. He hooks his fingers in the elastic of her panties. He drags them down her legs, leaving her spread open and bare before his eyes.

He parts her curls and ducks his head to press a kiss to her clit, sending a shock of pleasure through her.

“Fuck,” she moans. “God, _fuck_. Please do that again.”

He kisses her again, tongue flicking the most sensitive part of her. Alex arches back and spreads her legs wider, giving him better access.

He runs a finger over the seam of her sex, before dipping it carefully inside. He fucks her slow and steady, crooking his finger until he finds the spot that makes her light up like lightning. He pulls all the way out of her and pushes back in with two fingers. He thrusts into her his eyes never leaving hers, until she’s writhing on the mattress, her hands kneading at her breasts, her head thrown back.

She screams as she comes, clenching around his fingers. He doesn’t stop thrusting into her--he works her through her orgasm, only easing the glide of his fingers in and out of her a little. Until, unexpectedly, she feels her pleasuring building once more, until she’s shuddering and cursing, her hips bucking into Strand’s hand.

Until she shatters apart, sobbing his name, her second orgasm somehow stronger than the first.

He kisses her inner thigh as she comes down. He scrapes his teeth along tender flesh. His fingers are still inside her and she hisses when he slides them out. He puts them in his mouth and sucks them clean.

“Oh my God,” Alex manages once she can breath again. She makes a vague gesture towards him. “You haven’t-- Do you want--?”

He grins. “I’m not finished worshiping you, Alex.”

“Wait, what--?” her question breaks off in a gasp when he puts his mouth on her.

He places an open-mouthed kiss along the seam of her wet heat. He licks a long stripe, lapping at the evidence of her pleasure. He circles the over-sensitive nub of her clit. Alex arches off the bed, her back bowed.

She keens when he urges her open with his fingers and presses his tongue into her, hot and slick. He fucks her with his tongue while his thumb ghosts over her clit, pressure gentle, yet teasing.

“I can’t,” she says, grasping at his hair. Despite her words, she can’t tell whether she’s trying to push him away or bring him closer, ever closer. “I can’t. Oh, _fuck_ , I can’t.”

Alex cries out when he replaces his thumb with his lips. He sucks her clit into his mouth, worrying at it with deft flicks of his tongue, bringing her over the edge once more, her climax bright, so bright, she can see miniature suns bursting behind her eyes. 

While she breathes, eyes closed, her body boneless and _throbbing_ with the aftershocks of her orgasm, Alex hears the slide of fabric against skin. She peaks her eyes open to see Strand step out of his slacks. She must have been too out of it to notice him removing his shoes. But she isn’t too out of it now to notice how hard he is, how big, his cock straining, pre-come leaking from the head.

He crawls up the bed, leaving kisses along her skin as he covers her body with his own.

She barely has the strength to wrap her arms around him. He kisses her and Alex tastes herself on his lips. His cock is trapped between them, pressed against her leg.

“As a witcher,” he says, “I am sterile. I’m also immune to human diseases. But if it makes you more comfortable to use protection, I will wait.”

“No,” Alex says, “I want--”

She can’t understand how she can still want, but she does. She _wants_ Strand. Wants him inside her. Wants to watch him come undone with her legs locked around his waist.

“Please,” she says.

He guides himself to her entrance. She’s so slick, she takes his entire length readily. He sinks into her with a groan, until he’s seated fully within her.

He doesn’t move, not right away. He gives her a moment to adjust to the size of him. He kisses the column of her throat and palms her breasts. He rolls her nipples between thumb and forefingers. Alex grips his biceps and gasps. It’s only when Alex moved under him, rolling her hips, his cock hitting somewhere deep and satisfying inside her, that Strand pulls out, almost slipping out of her completely. With a snap of his hips, he fills her once more.

He tries to be gentle with her. He tries to set a slow pace. But by the pinched look between his eyes and his controlled breathing, Alex can see how much effort it takes for him to restrain himself.

Alex wraps her legs around him, urging him to fuck her harder, deeper, faster. His eyes clench shut and he bows his head, sweat slicked forehead pressed into her shoulder. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” Alex says. “I promise, I’m not fragile.”

After that, he loses any semblance of control. He pounds into her, over and over. He grips her by the ass and angles her so that she lights up with pleasure on every stroke. Her moans grow in pitch and intensity, until she’s clenching around his cock like a vice, a scream on her lips as she comes.

He curses as he finds his own release, fingers digging into her ass. With one last thrust, he spills himself inside her. Alex can feel it filling her, leaking out of her around his flagging erection.

He pulls out and collapses onto the bed beside her, breathing hard. “I hope that was to your satisfaction?”

Alex laughs and rolls over, lying tucked against him with her arm thrown over his scarred chest. “Are you kidding me?”

He cards his fingers through her hair. Her eyelids flutter shut. She could easily fall asleep like this, boneless and surrounded in his warmth. “I would not want you to leave my bed disappointed. Not when I promised to worship you.”

She kisses his chest. “Consider myself worshiped.”

Reluctantly, she rolls off of him. She pads across the room, into the en suite bathroom. She cleans herself up and returns with a damp washcloth for Strand.

Before she can so much as eye the pile of their clothing, thrown haphazard across the room, Strand pulls her back into bed. He draws her close and draws the duvet over both of them.

She falls asleep. Waking only once in the night, not to nightmares, but to languid kisses pressed to her skin. He takes her again, slowly, so slowly. Alex rolls her hips, meeting his every thrust. Her orgasm sneaks up on her and she holds onto him, crying out as he rides her to his own completion.

He cleans her up, places a kiss upon her lips.

They fall asleep, wrapped up in each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to hell for such sin. But if you're read this far, I'm taking you all with me. :}


	32. Unwelcome V

Five years after Coralee stepped into the portal, the witcher still searches.

He takes on only as many contracts as will fund him in his search. He eats sparingly, sleeps under the stars, if he sleeps at all. He returns to Kaer Cath--the School of the Cat--to winter and continues with his search at the first sign of spring.

No one has seen the enchantress.

He cannot stop the thought which haunts him, which gnaws at him night and day. That Coralee stepped into the portal to join Warren’s cult. That she was lured there as a sacrifice for the goddess Tiamat. That the reason no one has heard from the enchantress is because she lies dead and rotting in the ground.

He cannot stop this thought, but he refuses to give into it. Refuses to give up on the only woman he’s ever loved--will likely ever love. He _will_ find her. He _will_ rescue her from Warren’s clutches.

 

He meets a man upon the road. The witcher brings his horse to a halt. 

He knows this man. He recognizes the scent of ozone and the musty odor of old books upon his robes. He recognizes the face of the man, hidden as it is under his hood. He carries a staff, intricately carved.

The man’s lips curl into a smile.

The witcher hops down from his horse. He slaps Riven on the ass, spurring the horse in the direction which they came. The witcher’s hand goes to the steel sword at his back. He draws it, but holds it loosely in his palm as the sorcerer approaches.

“Warren,” the witcher says, low and dark.

Warren’s smile widens. “Ryszard of Strand. A pleasure to see you, truly. It has been _far_ too long.”

“Where is Coralee?” the witcher asks, dispensing with niceties. He has nothing kind to say to this man. _Nothing_.

“Cora?” Warren spreads his arms wide in an exaggerated shrug. “She disappeared a few years back, as I recall. I heard you’ve been searching for her. A shame nothing has come of it.”

“What did you do to her?”

“What have _I_ done?” Warren makes a show of affront. “Like you, I have not seen her. A more accurate question may be what have _you_ done? How did you manage to drive sweet Cora off into the night?”

The witcher’s eyes narrow. His hand clenches around the hilt of his sword.

“Perhaps you should stop searching, hm?” Warren leans in, green eyes sparkling, as if to tell the witcher a secret. “She never loved you, you know. She only kept you around because you’re such an interesting specimen, a Cat School freak who fancies himself in love.”

The witcher growls. “You’re lying.”

“Enchantresses are such fickle creatures. You couldn’t please her anymore, so she left.” Warren opens his eyes wide and arranges his features into something approaching shocked horror. “Or perhaps you hurt her?”

Fire burns behind the witcher’s eyes. 

Warren laughs, not at all deterred by the witcher’s fury. “That’s it, is it not? You could no longer hide your Cat School psychopathy, could you? It got the better of you and you hurt her. She ran from you. Or perhaps--” Warren places a hand over his mouth. He continues, quieter. “Perhaps you killed her. In a jealous rage? Or purely for the pleasure of seeing the light die from her eyes? You’re a witcher, so perhaps you did so solely for the handful of coin, just another one of your contra--”

The witcher charges before Warren can finish his taunt.

Warren is unexpectedly fast. He spins out of the way of the witcher’s sword. He parries the next blow with his staff, then uses it to sweep the witcher’s feet from under him. The witcher jumps back, but not fast enough. The staff connects with his knee. With a burst of lightning behind his eyes, the witcher knows Warren has shattered it. He crumples to the ground, but manages to roll away before the staff can come down over his head.

The sorcerer should not be this strong.

The witcher tries to focus beyond the pain, as he was trained. He tries to right himself, using his sword as leverage.

The staff connects with his side, sending the witcher flying in one direction, his sword in another.

“You cannot think to beat me, witcher,” Warren says. He doesn’t hurry in his approach. Each step is lazy and slow, as if the sorcerer is out for a stroll on a fine day. But the witcher can see madness in Warren’s eyes. He recognizes it from the days of his youth, training at Kaer Cath. “You’ll never be as strong, nor will you ever be as powerful as I. Not when I have the will of a goddess at my side.”

The witcher makes the Sign of Aard, but Warren bares the telekinetic blast as if it were only the barest of breezes. 

Warren’s staff comes down again. There isn’t enough time to draw his silver sword, the sword still strapped to his back, the sword meant for tearing through monsters. He blocks the blow with his arms.

A snap and a burst of pain. The witcher’s arm is broken, the bone visible through the bloody meat of his forearm. He clutches it to his chest, reflexively. 

The sorcerer doesn’t stop his assault. He rounds the witcher, kicks him in the lower back, sending him face-first into the dirt.

“See how low I have brought you, witcher? I don’t even need magic to defeat you,” Warren says. He kicks the witcher in the head with heavy boots.

The witcher tries to roll out of the way from a second kick, but pain makes him sluggish. He manages to roll onto his back, the edges of his vision grey, each breath a lance of pain through broken ribs.

“I am destined to become a god,” Warren says. “I will rule the world at Tiamat’s side.”

The witcher closes his eyes, expecting the next blow to be the last. He does not regret much in his life, only that he was unable to find Coralee, unable to save her from the mad sorcerer and his cult.

No witcher has ever died peacefully in their bed.

But the blow does not come.

Warren laughs. “I could kill you. Or I could leave you to the wolves and leshy. Let ghouls feast upon your rotting flesh. What say you, witcher? What would be the more fitting death for one of your kind?”

“Fuck you,” the witcher manages through bared teeth.

Warren laughs again. “Is that your final offer? 

The witcher doesn’t answer.

He curls in on himself when Warren kicks him several times in succession. He swallows down screams of pain and the bile that rises in his throat. The grey at the edges of his vision closes in on him, until finally death comes.

Except it doesn’t.

He wakes to the rattle of a cart. He lays on a pile of straw, covered by a quilt.

A pair of eyes look down at him. “You’re awake.”

The witcher groans in pain. He tries to curl into himself, but he’s held down by a pair of arms stronger than they look.

“Don’t move. You’ll injure yourself further.” 

“Who--who are you?” His lips are dry and cracked. He licks them, wetting them, but his mouth is just as dry. “Water?”

The woman tilts his head and helps him to drink from a canteen. “I’m Sister Cheryl. You probably don’t remember, master witcher, but you once saved me from a pack of drowners.”

It’s been years, but the witcher remembers the incident. Riding hard through the night in order to find a healer. He blinks at her and her freckled features come into focus. Her auburn hair is held at the nape of her neck with a bit of leather. He recognizes her. “Sister?”

The woman smiles. “I joined the sisterhood of Ostara not long after you saved me. I’m taking you back to the Temple to recover. It’s the least I can do after you helped me.”

He nearly tells her not to bother. But he retreats into himself, falling into silence.

A silence which lasts nearly a decade. Through his recovery and for years afterwards.

He mourns Coralee for dead.


	33. The End

The witcher holds Alex against him, arms wrapped tight around her, even in sleep.

She wants to lay there, to bask in his warmth, in his strength, but the need to pee wins out. She gently extricates herself from his grasp, kissing the line of his jaw when he makes a sound of dissent. She pads across the room into the bathroom, the satisfying ache between her legs a reminder of the activities of the night before.

She washes her hands, splashes water on her face, and roots around for an extra toothbrush. What she really needs is a shower, but for now, this will do.

She returns to the bed to find Strand awake, blinking blearily up at the ceiling. He looks at her, a smile curling the corner of his mouth. His eyes drag up and down her body, taking in her nakedness in the light of day with hungry appreciation.

Strand holds out a hand and Alex takes it. He draws her into bed and pulls her on top of him. He kisses the corner of her mouth. He trails kisses down the column of her throat, making her gasp when his teeth catch on her skin.

“Mmm,” Alex says. “Good morning to you, too.”

He laughs, breath tickling her shoulder. “How did you sleep?”

“No nightmares, for once.” She pulls back, only so she can look him in the eyes. “Pretty sure I have you to thank for that.”

Something like mischief gleams in his eyes. “A task I would willingly take on whenever you should wish it.”

Alex blushes. She knows exactly what he means, but she feels suddenly shy. Everything is so new between them, she still can’t believe it’s really happening. “What, become the guardian of my dreams?”

“Among other things.”

His cock is hard and thick against her leg. A flood of heat floods through her in response. 

She makes a sound of frustration and sits up. “As much as I want to stay in this bed with you, we need to get up. I don’t know how much time we have, but we need to beat Thomas Warren to the Horn of Tiamat.”

He follows her up, expression turned serious. “Do you know its location?”

Alex nods. “I think so. I mean, it’s just a feeling, but it’s a _strong_ feeling.”

She doesn’t tell him the rest of her dream. About seeing the black cat--the dream representation of Strand--knocked into the wall of the cave. About Thomas Warren summoning Tiamat into the world.

“We should hurry,” Strand says. He kisses her before standing, naked and beautiful before her. He smiles when he catches her looking her fill, much as he had done minutes before.

“Shower, he suggests. “I’ll make breakfast while you get ready.”

His eyes soften with something fond, something very much like love, when her stomach growls.

 

The cave is in New Mexico, of all places. Somewhere called Urraca Mesa, according to their maps. 

“It’s a bit off the beaten path,” says the man on the phone. His name is John Uvela. He’s an expert in the region and an honest to God boy scout. “I could take you out there in my ATV, if you want.”

Strand shakes his head. His hearing is sensitive enough Alex doesn’t need to put Uvela on speakerphone. “Better to keep civilians out of this.”

“Is there any way we could rent an ATV to take out there ourselves?” Alex asks.

She can tell by Uvela’s voice how bad an idea he thinks it is, but still he says, “Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem. But you’re going to have to hike after you leave the road. You’ll need to be prepared, have the right shoes, the right equipment. I’m out there all the time with my scouts--it wouldn’t mind acting as your guide, just to be safe.”

Alex looks to Strand, but again he shakes his head.

“No, thank you,” Alex says. “My companion is a witcher. We should be fine.”

At this, Uvela’s voice goes from cautionary to boy-like excitement. “Oh man, really? A real-life witcher?”

Alex smiles. “The only one in North America.”

“Do you--do you think he would be willing to talk to my scouts? Witchers are _legendary_ trackers--I’m sure there is _so much_ he could teach the kids.”

Alex laughs. “Let me ask him.”

“ _What?_ He’s there _right now_?”

Strand frowns. But he takes the receiver from Alex. He winces a little, pulls the phone away from his ear. Even _Alex_ can hear the excited chatter on the other end of the line. He speaks softly for a moment, reluctantly giving Uvela Ruby’s contact information.

They conclude their business shortly after that. Alex books flights, rents an ATV. She’s packed hiking boots and some of the equipment Uvela suggests they take. They can buy everything else once they get to New Mexico.

 

Alex holds on as the ATV bumps along the gravel road. She wipes sweat from her forehead and takes another drink from her bottle of water. As prepared as she thought herself, the desert heat is something she cannot get used to. Despite the sunscreen she’d rubbed liberally into her skin, her shoulders have already started to burn.

At last the gravel tapers off into sand and rock. Strand pulls the vehicle to a stop. Alex hops out and hefts her backpack onto her back.

Strand opens his witcher case. He takes out one of the bottles nestled inside, restocked since the last time she’s seen the case open. He uncorks it and downs it in one go. The sword he takes out is not the silver sword she’s seen him use. This sword is forged with dark metal, inscribed with ancient runes. The silver sword still lies in its velvet resting place inside the case.

“You brought _two_ swords?”

“I did not know what we would encounter when we got here.”

He slings the case across his shoulder and gestures for her to take vanguard while he takes the rear.

They walk for nearly an hour, the harsh rays of the sun beating down on them, before Alex recognizes her surroundings.

They’re too late.

The statues from Alex’s dream, the statues guarding the entrance to the cave, lie in pieces on the sand. The carved sandstone is scorched in some places.

Alex fights back tears and looks to Strand. He’s taking in the scene with his witcher eyes, his cat-like pupils slivers in the desert sun. He breathes in and his nose crinkles in disgust. “He’s here. I recognize his scent.”

Wasting no further time, the run into the cave. It’s dark, slightly cooler. Alex makes out shadowy paintings on the walls, the same paintings she’s seen in her dreams, as they make their way further into the cave. 

Alex keeps expecting to hear the call of the Horn, but the cave is silent, except for the pounding of their footsteps against the cave floor.

The cave opens up into a vast chamber. The chamber is lit by torches, illuminating more shadow paintings. And an altar. Upon the altar is an ivory horn.

Kneeling before the altar is Thomas Warren. He isn’t wearing his customary business suit, but a deep red robe. His blond curls bounce as he raises his head to greet them, a grin on his face, stretched too wide, showing too many teeth. His startlingly green eyes burn with triumph.

“Ryszard of Strand,” Warren says as he stands in one smooth motion. He leans nonchalantly upon his staff. “And Alex Reagan. Still hanging onto the witcher, I see. How unfortunate you did not heed my warning.”

Strand steps in front of her, knees bent and sword at the ready. “You will not touch her.”

Warren laughs. “You would protect this mortal, but she shall be one of the first to die. You have ensured her death by bringing her here. The only question: shall she live long enough to watch you perish? Or shall I give you the pleasure of watching as she bleeds out, the first of many offerings?”

Alex takes a step forward, stopped from approaching Warren by the steady strength of Strand’s arm. “Fuck you.”

“A feisty one, Ryszard. You must have a type. By the way, how is darling Cora?”

Strand’s hand clenches on his sword, but he makes no move toward Warren. His jaw is tight. His eyes flash with hatred.

“She’s not with you, that’s for fucking sure,” Alex says, when Strand doesn’t rise to the bait. “She realized what a monster you are and got the hell out of dodge.”

Warren’s malicious grin falls as he snarls like an animal. “Cora could have been powerful. She could have ruled the world with me, at my side.”

“You’re deranged.” Strand says. “And Coralee knew it.”

Warren’s eyes narrow. “Such harsh words, witcher. Coming from a man I left broken and bleeding, last we met.”

Alex looks at Strand, but she sees the truth of Warren’s statement in the way Strand shifts, widening his stance. 

Warren pushes himself off with his staff. Strand springs into action. With a shrug, he drops his witcher case to the ground. He pushes Alex away, at the same time, making her skin light up with a golden protection spell.

Strand and Warren circle each other. Alex hangs back, feeling helpless. 

“Do you actually think you can beat me, Ryszard?” Warren asks. He conjures a ball of fire at the end of his staff and throws it at Strand. Strand tucks and rolls out of the way, lands on his feet and continues circling. 

Warren throws another fireball and chases it, staff raised to strike. 

Strand deflects the fireball with a witcher spell which sends it flying back into Warren, forcing Warren to dodge. Strand takes the initiative and strikes with his sword, but Warren is fast. Warren blocks it with his staff and jumps back, anticipating the spell Strand aims, not at Warren, but at the ground at his feet. Purple runes glow in the sand.

Warren laughs, not out of breath in the last. “Hoping to trap me, are you? Your Signs are _useless_ against me.”

They clash again. Fireballs and lightning strikes fly at Strand, but he dodges them, weaving expertly out of danger. Warren comes at him, swinging his staff fast and dirty, but Strand parries. He distracts the sorcerer with magic and makes calculated strikes with his sword.

Warren lashes out. The longer the fight goes on, the more desperate, the more frenzied, his movements become. As a counterpoint, Strand is cool and calm, his actions deliberate. If Alex didn’t know better, she would think Strand is playing with the sorcerer, like a cat its favorite toy.

Warren catches on. His golden curls are wet with sweat. His chest heaves with exertion. But he grins.

The sorcerer mutters something and a freezing wind surrounds Alex. Frost crawls across her skin. With a sound like glass shattering, Strand’s protection spell breaks.

Alex gasps. Her skin _burns_ with cold.

With a growl, Strand lunges at Warren. He strikes blindly. It’s enough to break Warren’s concentration, halting the creep of frost, but it also leaves Strand open for Warren’s next attack.

Warren blasts Strand backwards with a burst of fire from the end of his staff.

And just like that, Warren has the upper hand, striking ever faster, throwing spells with abandon. It’s all Strand can do to avoid being hit. He grunts in pain when the staff inevitably connects, hitting him square in the chest. 

Strand stumbles and falls.

Warren laughs, triumphant.

Alex brushes the remnants of ice from her arms. She casts around for something to do, some way she can help.

Strand’s silver sword is still in the black case, lying on the cave floor only yards away from her.

Alex inches toward it as Warren stalks toward Strand. She wills Strand to hold on, to keep Warren busy long enough for her to do what she needs to.

She grasps the sword, surprised at its weight. She has to hold it with two hands and half-drag it behind her.

The fight drags on.

Alex approaches the altar. She lifts the sword over her head, staggering a little until she can find her footing.

“No!” Warren screams.

“Alex!” Strand yells.

Alex brings the sword down on the ivory horn, still in its place upon the altar.

A flare of white light blinds Alex. Alex feels herself carried backward on a cloud of heat. Her skull cracks against something hard. A kaleidoscope of pain flashes in front of her eyes--are they open or closed?--before everything goes dark.

 

She wakes in Strand’s arms. He’s carrying her, hands under her knees, supporting the back of her head. He holds her close as he carries her, his steps unsteady as he limps out of the cave.

Alex groans. Her head throbs. Every part of her hurts. “What happened?”

Blood drips from Strand’s hairline from an unseen injury. Some of the tension around his eyes eases when he sees she’s awake. “Thomas Warren is dead.”

“You killed him?”

Strand hums in agreement.

“And the Horn?”

A small smile pulls at his lips. “You destroyed it, Alex.”

Alex sits up in his arms. Her body aches, but it’s worth it to put her arms around his neck. “We did it?”

His smile widens. “We did.”

Alex kisses him. He makes a sound of surprise, but slants his lips against hers.

They did it.

Once again, the world is saved by a living legend.

And Alex?

She’s basically a hero. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE thanks to everyone who supported me through the writing of this fic. I know it wasn't really the same TBTP we know and love, but I had SO MUCH FUN writing this. Figuring out which elements of TBTP canon and Witcher lore would work, which direction to take the plot of this fic--it was such an adventure. THANK YOU for coming on this adventure with me.
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, please consider taking a second to write a comment. Even if it's just a 'great job' or 'I loved this.' Your feedback really means a lot to me.


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